B00B9BL6TI EBOK

by C. B. Hanley

  Alys looked under her eyelashes at the young man – Edwin – as Peter haggled the man down to one shilling the yard for the cambric, and started another discussion about needing some cheaper burel to make new clothing for his servants. He wasn’t looking at her, but she got the feeling that he might have been a moment ago.

  The Peters were finally coming to the point. ‘So, let me see, I have perhaps a mark of silver available, and I may want eight yards of the burel at fourpence the yard, four yards of the sarsenet at sevenpence, and – now, if the cambric is for hangings I will want five ells, but at a shilling the yard …’ they were giggling together like a couple of apprentices, but as they turned smugly towards their victim, he interjected before they could draw breath.

  His voice was amiable. ‘Eleven shillings and threepence, Master Peter, so you would have two shillings and a penny left from your mark.’

  Alys had to put her hand over her mouth to stifle a smile. She didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone deflate so quickly. Both Peters were completely speechless, a sight she certainly hadn’t seen before. William, unaware of the undercurrents in the conversation, was congratulating his nephew.

  ‘Well done, Edwin. My sister and goodbrother have taught you well – I have never known anyone reckon so quickly. A real merchant’s son.’

  Peter of the Bail was looking spitefully at Edwin, and Alys realised he hadn’t finished the test yet.

  ‘Yes, a fine calculation, young man. Perhaps you would be kind enough to pass me the bolt of cambric so that I may inspect it more closely?’

  Edwin agreed, but Alys saw the slightest hesitation as he looked over the stall. She was not going to let the Peters win their nasty game.

  ‘Here, let me help you, you won’t be able to reach across me from there.’ Smoothly she picked up the fine white linen and passed it over to him. Their eyes met, and she caught a glimpse of his relief before he dropped his gaze.

  The Peters didn’t look too happy at being bested, but they hadn’t seen what she had seen, and were content to take Edwin at face value. The stallholder was looking hopefully at Peter of the Bridge, perhaps unable to believe that nearly a whole mark of silver was about to come his way. He was right, it wasn’t: Peter turned on his heel and strode off, followed shortly by his companion, leaving the man staring after them. He spat disgustedly on the ground and looked pointedly at the rest of them until they moved on. William was asking her if they could assist her in any way, but before she could reply, the gaunt figure of Master Michael stalked up to them.

  He took her hand. ‘Alys. My dear girl. I wanted to speak to you yesterday after your poor father’s funeral but didn’t have the leisure as I had to return here straight away. I haven’t asked you about his final moments – was he shriven? Was he in the Lord’s grace?’

  She assured him that this was the case, hoping he would drop the subject, but he seemed particularly keen to continue it, probing further.

  ‘And did he never recover consciousness before he died? You weren’t able to speak with him?’

  She was on her guard immediately. What business of his was it whether he had regained his wits? And why did everyone seem so interested? Of course, there was one obvious answer to that question, but it didn’t mean that she was about to go telling the whole marketplace. How could she know whom to trust?

  Aid came to her in the form of the young man she now knew was not a wool merchant’s son. ‘Mistress, you look so pale all of a sudden. Are you quite all right?’ He stepped forward in concern.

  She took the hint, raising one arm wearily to her head and agreeing that yes, everything had taken a toll on her, and she would like to go home and rest.

  Master Michael looked as though he might press the point, or even offer to walk with her, but again Edwin forestalled him, encouraging William to take her arm and lead her off. There was no arguing with that – if the mayor wanted to walk her home then she could not be in better hands. She would be glad to escape.

  Edwin hoped he’d done the right thing. People just wouldn’t leave her alone, and she needed some peace. But he was forestalled in his efforts, for the man whose name he hadn’t learned had appeared again, and he looked agitated. As he approached he took off his cap, and he stood screwing it in his hands. He opened his mouth but seemed unable to speak.

  Everyone stopped and looked at him as he stammered. It was Alys who finally broke the silence. ‘Yes, Ralf, what is it?’

  Ralf – aha, finally – blushed a deep red. ‘I – mistress, there’s something I have to tell you.’ He looked around him. ‘Perhaps we could speak privately?’

  Alys seemed about to answer, but one of the Peters stepped forward with a smirk on his face. Edwin wanted to hit him. No doubt he wanted to hear whatever gossip it was, hoping it would be hurtful to someone. ‘For shame, man, do you think we will let you walk off with an unescorted young woman? If you have something to say, say it to all of us.’

  Ralf was in an agony of awkwardness, almost hopping up and down. He addressed Alys alone, pleading with her. ‘Please, miss, please. It’s about your father. I need to tell you what he was doing the night he was struck down.’

  Alys had turned as white as an altar cloth. Edwin was in a dilemma: he desperately wanted to spare her any pain, wanted to whisk her away so she could speak to the man in peace, but he needed to hear what was going to come next.

  Once Ralf had spoken the words in public, though, it seemed there was no turning back. All the men were crowding round him, demanding that he say more.

  He screwed his cap even more between his hands and spoke to Alys again. ‘You see miss – I’m worried about his soul. He was a good master, the best I’ve ever had, and yet he was sinning, and I’m not sure he will be allowed into heaven. And I need to tell you what I’ve done – I can’t keep quiet any longer!’

  There was a deep silence. Ralf took a gasping breath and plunged in further. ‘I would see him, often, leaving the house. As I was locking up the weaving shed. I knew it was none of my business, but I wondered where he was going. So one night, as it was getting dark, I saw him slipping out of the alley between the houses and up the street, and I couldn’t help myself – I followed him.’

  Edwin realised he was holding his breath. He looked around him to see that every eye, Alys’s included, was riveted on the weaver. She was holding one hand out as though she really did want to guide him to a quiet corner now to speak privately, but it was too late.

  Ralf was continuing. ‘I followed him all the way up through town – I couldn’t think where he might be going. He went right past the place where all those houses had been knocked down, and kept going up to the northern part of the town. I saw him knock on a door and go in.’

  He stopped, looking straight at Alys. Peter of the Bridge couldn’t contain himself, and burst out. ‘But whose house? Damn it, man, tell us more!’

  Ralf’s eyes never left Alys. ‘It was the widow Gunnilda’s house.’

  Edwin had absolutely no idea who this woman was, or why the mention of the name should have such an effect on everyone round him. He looked at them in turn. Both Peters had a look of cruel triumph, though one of them was gloating more than the other. Master Michael was unreadable. William merely looked sad, a little disappointed. And Alys – well, there were so many emotions on her face that he couldn’t hope to read them all. There was definitely surprise, and a huge anger.

  Everyone now looked at her, William offering his arm as a support. But she wasn’t weak – she was furious.

  ‘How dare you! How dare you say such things about my father, with him hardly cold in his grave!’

  The words tumbled out of Ralf as he backed away from such anger. ‘Mistress, I – I didn’t mean to cause trouble, I’ve been so sorry since I found out, I didn’t know how to tell you, or whether to say anything to him …’

  She was almost spitting. ‘Lies! My father would never go out to see another woman at night. Never! He loved my mother.’

 
William tried to placate her, laying a hand on her arm. ‘My dear, you know, your mother has been dead a very long time, and men do need … female company.’ He cleared his throat.

  Alys rounded on him. ‘So now you know my father better than me? I’m telling you, he wouldn’t go to see another woman, and that is not what he was doing.’ Her voice broke and she started to sob. Belatedly all the men became more gallant, but Edwin managed to get himself between them and her, so that only William was offering support. He kept the others at bay until William and Alys had walked off. Ralf began to slink off in the other direction, and Edwin left Master Michael and the Peters to themselves. He didn’t care what they spoke of – he just needed some time to think.

  Of course, in such a large city there was not likely to be a quiet place anywhere, not like at home, and he found himself surrounded by people on all sides. He became agitated, bumping into the people who crowded him, and receiving evil looks and a few shoves in reply. This was no good; he needed some space and some peace. He needed to calm down. Eventually he took his eyes off the hurly-burly around him and looked up. Of course! There would be quiet and somewhere to think in there. He made his way into the cathedral.

  As he entered the great stone building he felt the cool air and the space, the high vaults soaring to the heavens. Footsteps echoed on the tiled floor, but there were fewer people in here, and the sound was not intrusive. He stopped and inhaled the aroma of the incense which remained from a previous service. He forced himself to remain, breathing, until his heart had stilled a little, and then he looked around him. Finding a corner, he moved to it and knelt in prayer – firstly, for the souls of those dear to him whom he had lost, and secondly, for some divine guidance as to what he should do next. He was clueless. He’d been so sure that Nicholas had been the key, that he’d been trying to find his way to the castle when he was attacked, and now it seemed that this wasn’t the case. He’d wasted his precious time on a thread which turned out not to be part of the weaving, and if he didn’t come up with something else within the next few hours, all would be lost. If he had ever needed to pray, it was now.

  As he knelt and offered up his desperate supplications to the Lord the cathedral emptied, and stillness reigned. There were a few others here and there, perhaps praying for the safety of loved ones, but they were as silent as he, and he was able to shut them out as he drew closer into his own thoughts. He stayed on his knees as he tried to empty his mind. If the Lord wanted him to find out the truth, he would help him in some way. Here in this holy place He would guide the thoughts of His humble servant. Edwin clasped his hands and prayed for salvation.

  Alys fidgeted as she watched the children eat. How could Ralf say such things about Papa? They couldn’t possibly be true, for she knew what he’d been doing on the night he was attacked. Or did she? Perhaps … no, he wouldn’t have lied on his deathbed. But maybe there had been other nights, other times where he had slipped off in the dark to visit the woman – after all, hadn’t she said in the street the other day that she knew Papa? Surely not; it was unthinkable. He wouldn’t have forgotten Mama that way. But …

  She needed to stop thinking about that. There would be time enough in the future to try and unravel the threads of what had happened, but for now she needed to concentrate on the task ahead. First she needed to get the children fed and in bed, for she couldn’t leave them otherwise. They’d grown to depend upon her so much that they gathered close around her all the time, as though she were a rock and they adrift in the river. Even now, small hands clutched at her skirts. She would put them to bed first and then go out, although she chafed at the delay. Forcing herself to be patient, she shepherded them upstairs and into her father’s bedroom. It seemed eerie and somehow wrong for them all to be in there, but he no longer needed the large bed – Lord rest his soul – and they may as well sleep in it rather than on the straw mattresses on the floor in the other room. She settled them in the bed and drew the covers around them. Margery and Edric looked wan and Randal was crying again, so she sat by the side of the bed holding his hand, seeking to give comfort where there was little to be had, and waited for them all to fall asleep.

  She awoke a little later, having fallen into a light doze. She felt exhausted, drained. And yet she must try again.

  What was that?

  A noise had sounded from outside, from the yard which was shared by the four houses. Her heart thumping as though it would force itself from her body, she crept down the stairs into the kitchen and peered out between the cracks of the shuttered window. It was night, but the moon was nearly full, and as the clouds came and went across it in the stiff breeze the garden was illuminated in stark black and white. She could see nothing untoward as her eyes swept the yard; perhaps her fear had made her imagine things. She was preparing to move away from the window when something caught her eye to one side of her: something had been left by the door. She couldn’t make out what it was: a large, shapeless object.

  She looked again out into the garden, more suspiciously, but could see nothing, no movement. She ached with the dilemma facing her, but eventually curiosity won out. Cautiously she unbarred the door and began to open it.

  Chapter Seven

  Edwin knelt in the cool silence of the cathedral, thoughts scattering like sheep in his mind as he tried to order them. Start from the beginning. There was some sort of resistance in the town which was meant to help the castle. But what exactly is it I’m supposed to be looking for? Is it a cache of weapons? Some kind of information that would stop the siege engines or that would help a relieving force? There was no way of knowing. But someone in the city knew what it was, and he’d failed in his task of finding out who. Try as he might, he kept coming back to Nicholas Holland. Had he really been going out that night in search of his mistress? Ralf seemed to think so, and the others had all been ready to believe him. No, not all – Alys had been certain that that wasn’t it. But was she just a naïve girl who wouldn’t believe any ill of her father? He tried to summon up an image of her face. It wasn’t difficult. He saw her as he’d seen her this afternoon, tried to analyse her expression again as it had been when she heard Ralf’s tale. There had been anger, surprise, and something else. What was it? He screwed his eyes up even tighter as he tried to look more closely at the picture in his head. Surprise, anger, and … yes – that was it. A look of relief. But what did that mean? He sighed, shifted his position and started all over again. Someone had tried to help the castle …

  As the afternoon drew on into evening, and the cold of the hard stone floor seeped into his knees, he tried one last prayer. Please Lord, help me. Help me not for myself, but for all the people here who will suffer and perhaps die if I don’t succeed. It’s growing dark and I need to be back at the castle tonight, yet I have nothing to say. What is the missing clue? This is probably blasphemous, but Father, if you are up there among the saints and the blessed, please ask one of them to intercede for me. I need your help.

  He felt a touch on his arm and saw an aged, wrinkled hand. His breath stopped. But the hand belonged not to a spirit. It was William.

  ‘Edwin – there you are. I have been looking for you every-where. Master Michael said he had seen you enter earlier, but I had not thought you would still be here.’

  Edwin tried to rise, but his knees were stiff. William put out a hand to help him, but his balance wasn’t good, and the two of them were nearly bowled over by a slight man in a dark cloak and red hat, who stopped to offer an apology and help them up. Edwin recognised him as being the neighbour of Alys. Not the young man Gervase, but the other one, the one who lived on the other side. Pinel, that was it. As the man assured himself that they were both all right and turned to move away, the Lord finally whispered in Edwin’s ear. He gripped William’s arm.

  ‘Nicholas Holland. Was he shorter than most men? Perhaps a little smaller and slighter than me?’

  ‘Why yes, if you must know. But what has that got to do with –’

  ‘I
have to go.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, now. I have only a short time left and there is someone I must speak to.’ He reached out and gripped the old man’s hand. ‘Thank you, William, for what you’ve done for me, and may the Lord keep you safe in the days to come.’

  He turned and ran out of the cathedral into the darkened streets.

  Alys gulped as she unbarred the door and started to open it. She was cautious, pulling it softly, but all of a sudden the weight of the object shoved the door inwards and opened it fully. A corpse collapsed into the room, thumping on to the floor in front of her, and before she could help herself she screamed and screamed and screamed.

  She knew she was doing it, and knew she had to stop, but somehow she had lost control of her voice, and she had to gather up her apron and stuff it into her mouth to control her frenzied outburst. Eventually she managed to quieten herself and stood, huge shudders running through her body.

  Sounds of alarm came from upstairs. She’d woken the children. They must be terrified up there, thinking someone had got in the house. She must go to reassure them. She was halfway up the stairs before she wondered what in the Lord’s name she was going to tell them. She couldn’t reveal the truth. She reached the top and just stood as they gathered round her. But merely seeing her alive and unharmed seemed to quell their fear a little, and they allowed her to calm them with soothing words which came unbidden to her lips. They became content enough to be put back in bed, so she tucked them in and went back down. As she stood at the bottom of the stairs, a vague hope stirred in her that she’d been imagining things and that a normal kitchen scene would await her. She closed her eyes as she entered, praying before she opened them.

  The corpse lay spread on the floor, face down, the door behind it gaping into the night. She stood, unmoving. She knew who it was, knew who it must be, but somehow, if she didn’t touch it, didn’t turn it over to see the face, it wouldn’t be real.