by Jason Vail
“I think Wattepas did more than merely supervise.”
“I suppose. Say, do you think I’m the last person to see him alive?”
“I hope not.”
A tailor from down the street on his Sunday stroll stopped to gossip and inquire about wine prices, so John turned away to pursue profit over gossip.
Stephen paused in the street. He gazed toward the Wattepas house, where he had been intending to begin the search, but he reckoned that he had enough from John to get started, which was too bad. He had been hoping to catch a glimpse of Adele Wattepas. The last time he had felt a pull of such intensity was with Margaret de Thottenham, and his relations with her had brought as much trouble as pleasure. Desire was such torture. He wished that he did not have such feelings. He had still not gotten over Taresa’s death, even though more than a year had passed since a fever had swept her away leaving him with a small child he hadn’t seen in months, another thing that gnawed at his conscience and that he needed to set right. Better to stay away, he decided.
Now the tedium began in earnest, as Stephen and Gilbert passed down High Street by the drapers’ and grocers’ shops and into Butcher’s Row and at last to the crossroads where High met Corve and Old Streets, the broad open space known as the Bullring. On market days, the place was crowded with animals and their sellers — sheep, goats, chickens, cattle and horses in their temporary pens of wicker thrown up to confine them — and the buyers wandering about, examining a potential purchase, haggling over prices or swilling ale at the taverns around the Ring. But today it was deserted and all the shops closed so that they had to bang on the doors to get anyone’s attention.
At every shop they passed they confirmed what John Spicer told them: that Wattepas went by early in the morning heading this way, as was his usual practice; no one thought anything about it or paid much attention since they were used to seeing him. Now that Stephen and Gilbert had reached the Bullring, they split up to question the tavern keepers round about since Wattepas could have taken any one of the three routes out of the Ring.
Stephen worked his way around to the right while Gilbert went to the left. They met at Galdeford Street, which left the Bullring only a short distance from Galdeford Gate.
Gilbert, who was chewing on a sweet bun, shook his head as they came together. “You?”
“Nothing,” Stephen said.
“I suppose there’s nothing for it but to work our ways down the streets,” Gilbert said, sweeping his arm to encompass Galdeford, Old and Corve streets. He seemed no more enthusiastic than Stephen felt about the trudging and repetitive inquiries that would be necessary.
Stephen heard a rattling behind him. A voice asked, “You fellows mightn’t be able to spare a farthing, would you?”
Stephen turned to see you had spoken, for the voice was close by and seemed to be directed at him. When he turned, the speaker said, “Oh, it’s you two. Never mind. Away with your bad money.”
“Hello, Dick,” Stephen said. “Aren’t you out of place?” This was One-eye Dick, one of the beggars of the town who normally worked at the Galdeford Gate. He was dressed in rags almost as frayed and worn as Harry’s. Whereas Harry lacked legs, Dick was missing an eye, a feature he used to good effect when begging, for he flipped up his patch so passersby could see the empty socket, the flesh within wrinkled and pink. He often walked with a crutch, although he was not crippled, his stockings down to reveal a seeping sore when he had one. But today he was without his crutch or a sore, and was seated on a box at the entrance to the Black Lion tavern at the corner where Galdeford Street emptied into the Bullring.
“Nah,” Dick said. “I’m all legal. Got a license to beg the market. What you done for Harry gave him an unfair advantage. The rest of us got to keep up, or he’ll snag all the good charity.” Some time ago, Stephen had obtained a license for Harry to beg the weekly market on High Street, a very coveted location. “Say, got any good money to spare? What about you, Gilbert? You’re a rich fellow. You must have at least one good penny.”
Gilbert peered into Dick’s cup. “It looks like you’ve been doing quite well for a Sunday. Isn’t it illegal to beg on Sundays?”
“It ain’t been a bad day,” Dick said, ignoring the suggestion of illegality. He rattled his cup and winked his good eye. “It could be better if you’d help out. No?” He sat back, disappointed. “Say, I saw you snooping about the Ring. What’s going on? It about that dead fellow in your privy? Bad for business, people getting murdered like that.”
“No,” Gilbert said. “It’s not. It’s about Wattepas.”
“Leofwine Wattepas?” Dick asked. “I heard he’d disappeared. Run off to get away from that wife of his, I don’t doubt.”
“You didn’t happen to see him Friday morning?” Stephen asked.
“Don’t know if I did,” Dick answered. “That’s so long ago. My memory don’t go back that far.” He rattled his cup again. “But it might be encouraged, if I think on it hard enough.”
Stephen sighed. He and Gilbert exchanged looks. Gilbert put his hands in his sleeves and gazed into the distance. Stephen dug out his purse and dropped a farthing he could not afford to spare into the cup. Dick plucked out the farthing and examined it closely, licking it and rubbing it on his sleeve.
Dick closed his good eye, his face compressed by a grimace.
“All right, then,” he said, relaxing the grimace and grinning. “I believe I did see him.”
“Early in the morning?” Stephen asked.
“Just as I was getting to the gate.”
“Galdeford Gate.”
“That would be the one.”
“Did you see him every day?”
“Actually, yes. Odd thing, isn’t it? A rich man like that walking about when he should be getting ready for work.”
“I suppose he passed through the gate.”
“You’d be an idiot if you didn’t — no offense meant, sir.”
“Which way did he go?”
“Which way? I’m such a busy man I don’t have time to note such trivialities.”
“Don’t give me that, Dick. You know. Not much happening around this town escapes you.”
Dick rattled his cup again.
“Forget it. You’ve got from me all you’re going to get.”
Dick looked sour.
“If we find him, especially if it results from your help, there might be something more for you,” Stephen said, surrendering to the demands of the marketplace.
“Most generous of you, sir,” Dick said. He stuck a finger into the empty eye socket and scratched an itch that broke out there. “He took the left fork in the road.”
“The left fork, you say?”
“I only know of one left fork. It’s the one opposite the right.”
“Thank you, Dick.” Stephen stepped away, about to draw off toward Galdeford Gate.
“There’s a widow outside Upper Galdeford,” Dick said. “You might want to seek her out.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Dick shrugged. “Don’t know. She’s a great gossip. Name’s Gwenllian.”
“I’ll do that. Come on, Gilbert.”
“A full penny!” Dick shouted at their backs. “It’s worth a full penny!”
Four women with buckets were drawing water from the Galdeford village well, which stood behind the stone cross at the crossroads where Upper and Lower Galdeford Streets parted ways. Stephen called to them since they looked like prospects for interrogation. One of the women paid no heed to him, and took her buckets toward Lower Galdeford, but the others waited for him to draw up.
He established straightaway that they lived along Lower Galdeford, so there was no use asking them about Wattepas, but he did inquire about the gossip Gwenllian. This provoked a few chuckles. Stephen had the sense that the women were laughing at him, as if he was the butt of some secret joke. One of the women waved toward Upper Galdeford. She said, “Last house on the left after the chapel. You can’t miss it. No
body does. Good day to you, sir.”
There was another round of sly smiles, while the women collected their buckets and set off into Lower Galdeford.
“Mistress Gwenllian does not seem to be very popular,” Gilbert said. “I wonder why.”
“Her popularity is not our business.”
“Shall we head up there first?”
“No. We might as well ask if anyone along the way saw anything. You take the right side. I’ll take the left.”
Gilbert eyed the stretch of road that lay before them. “It’s almost dinner time.”
“Sacrifices must be made.”
“I would have you make them. Not I. Especially not my dinner. It is the happiest time of the day, except for bedtime.”
“Let’s get on with it. Or it will be sundown before we’re through. Do you want to miss supper as well?”
“I am growing tired of this line of work,” Gilbert grumbled, but set off toward the first house on the right.
The line of houses was not long; they ended after about a hundred yards or so, not far beyond the close of St. Stephen’s church. Yet as with most inquiries of this sort, much time was lost before they reached the little chapel that marked the end of the village. Across the street stood the great oak shading the house of Beth Makepeese, a woman of Stephen’s acquaintance. Neither Beth, her children nor their many goats were in evidence. He thought, nonetheless, about knocking on her door as well to get a sense of what he might expect of this Gwenllian. But since the last house on the left stood only a few yards away, he went straight there.
Gilbert sat down on the plank bridge separating the yard from the street. “My feet are sore. I hope you don’t mind if I wait here?”
“Suit yourself,” Stephen said. He pushed through the gate into the front garden, which was overgrown with grass.
Someone spotted him through an open window, for Stephen heard a voice calling, “Mum! Someone’s here!” as he crossed the yard, and he didn’t have to knock on the door. It opened as soon as he reached the threshold.
A woman of uncommon attractiveness stood in the doorway. You could not say she was beautiful; her nose was too large for that, her chin too square, her lips too full. Yet the full effect of these features, along with cool, appraising eyes that were a fetching green, made her pleasing to look upon. A man could get lost in those eyes. Her hair, plaited beneath a linen wimple, had only a few strands of white among the blackness, which gave her age away in a manner in which her face, which had only the smallest of lines about the eyes and mouth, did not.
“You are the Mistress Gwenllian?” Stephen asked.
“I am,” Gwenllian said with only a trace of a Welsh accent. “What brings you to my door. Not wool, I’m sure.”
“Wool?” Stephen said, a bit startled at that.
“Wool is our business, my daughters and me. We are spinners. It is how we make our living, such as it is.”
“I see. I didn’t come about wool.”
“Something else, then?” Gwenllian leaned against a door post, arms crossed under breasts that pushed interestingly at the fabric of her linen shift.
“Uh,” Stephen said, trying to keep his gaze on her face. “I am here about Leofwine Wattepas.”
The slightest of tremors shook the corners of Gwenllian’s mouth and eyes, so slight that if Stephen had not been staring directly at her face he might have missed it. “I don’t know a Leofwine Wattepas,” Gwenllian said.
“You don’t know him?”
“I know of him. Everybody does, I suppose, as he is the richest man in town. But I don’t know him. Why?”
“He has gone missing. He was last seen heading into Upper Galdeford.”
“What business is this of yours, if I may ask, sir?”
“I’ve been asked to find him.”
“By whom? Certainly not Sir Geoffrey. I doubt he would care.”
“No, not Sir Geoffrey.”
“His wife, then, eh?” Gwenllian came off the door frame and stepped back into the house a pace.
Stephen did not answer this question. Instead, he said, “I have been told that you are a good source of information on what happens in the village.”
Gwenllian smiled, but not in a friendly way. “You’ve been to the well, I see.”
“I stopped there.”
“Those women are full of spite. They’ll say anything.”
“Nonetheless, did you see Leofwine Wattepas come this way Friday morning?”
“No.”
“Or any other morning?” Stephen persisted.
Gwenllian shook her head.
One of the daughter, out of sight behind her, said, “Mummy —”
Gwenllian’s head snapped around. “Quiet!” She turned back to face Stephen. “Is that all? We have much work to do. It is hard enough as it is to make ends meet without a husband without having to waste time on missing goldsmiths.”
“That did not seem to go well,” Gilbert said, rising from his seat on the plank bridge as Stephen came through the gate.
“You heard?”
“I am not deaf, you know.”
“A rather more sharp denial that I would have expected from a mere spinner.”
“You think she was lying?”
“It felt like she was being less than candid.”
“Should we go back and put the question to her more vigorously?”
“I’ve the feeling that she could stand up to whatever we threw at her.”
They strolled down the street toward town in silence until they reached a spot three houses down from the crossroad. A path came in from the north at this place. Stephen contemplated the path.
“Where does that go?” he asked Gilbert.
“Plainly, into that field there.” For a barley field was visible beyond the gardens, which were bordered by a thick hedge of hawthorn.
“I wonder,” Stephen said. He walked the path to the point where it entered the field. The path continued north toward St. Mary’s, the village next to the River Corve Bridge. Another path skirted the field by the gardens lying along Upper Galdeford Street.
“You think he took this path?” Gilbert asked. “It seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”
“Dick said he entered Upper Galdeford Street. Yet no one here reports ever having seen him. If he took this path, that might explain why. He goes up to St. Mary’s and comes back by Corve Street, a circle of sorts.”
“A very long shot.”
“Yes, it is.” Stephen bent to examine the ground, although he was not hopeful that any sign of Wattepas’ passing would remain after two days. He straightened up and was about to turn away when he spotted a pile of horse manure a few paces along the way behind the houses of Upper Galdeford Street. A pile of horse manure was, by itself, nothing extraordinary. The world was brimming with horse shit. But as Stephen’s eyes followed the path, he saw at last four more piles. That was a lot of piles for one horse, which meant that more than one horse had taken this path in the last couple of days, for when he cut open the nearest pile with his dagger, he could see that although the outside had begun to dry and turn brown, the inside was still green and moist.
He was about to dismiss this mystery as having nothing to do with Wattepas when six horsemen came at a fast trot down the alley behind them and arrayed themselves in a semi-circle around Stephen and Gilbert, hemming them in against the hedge. They were a tough looking bunch, hard and muscular: men-at-arms at the very least, all with swords and dressed too well to be the ordinary highway robber.
If either Stephen or Gilbert had an impulse to run, that intent died quickly, for one of the horsemen, who regarded them over a drawn crossbow, said, “Don’t think about it.”
“What do you want?” Stephen asked, measuring the gaps between the horses and wondering how thick that hedge was. Some hedges were as sturdy and impassable as a wall.
“You’re Attebrook,” said the man with the crossbow, who had a harelip that made it look as though his face had been split o
pen, crooked teeth showing.
“So? Have we met? If we have I don’t recall it.”
“You’ve something we want.”
“I don’t see how that is possible.”
“That fellow in the privy. You took them from him.”
“The dies for making coin?”
The man with the crossbow nodded.
“I gave them to the undersheriff. He’s sent them on to Hereford by now.”
“I want you to get them back.”
“Don’t be daft.”
“Oh, you’ll get them, all right.” The fellow gestured to one of the others, who dismounted. “Take that fat fellow.”
The man who had dismounted grasped Gilbert by the collar and dragged him away from the hedge, while the man with the crossbow trained the weapon on Stephen in case he interfered.
“I know he’s a good friend of yours,” said the man with the crossbow. “If you don’t get those dies, we’ll cut off his head. You have one week. We’ll be in touch to let you know where.”
Chapter 11
Two of the ruffians bound Gilbert’s hands and feet with leather thongs. They boosted him upon the hindquarters of a horse and, with another set of thongs, tied him to the saddle, as if he was a rather bulky bedroll. Stephen stood by, helpless under the crossbow.
The burden secure, the men mounted, and the horsemen trotted along the path behind the hedges, Gilbert bouncing and groaning, eyes clamped shut and face livid, but unable to utter a protest because he’d been gagged with a strip of rag. They swerved across the barley field toward a copse to the east of St. Mary’s. Riding across someone’s plowed field was a serious trespass, but the offense was minor compared to the kidnapping and threats.
Stephen watched them go, rage mingled with shame that he had done nothing but stand there. He followed the path along the back gardens to keep the horsemen in sight as long as possible. The hedge bordering the path was as tall as he was and thick, so that he could not see through it, and only realized he had passed the little chapel and Gwenllian’s house when the large oak in the Makepeese yard across the street loomed into view.