The Burgundian's tale

Her husband was considerably older, painfully thin and already beginning to stoop. He had once been dark-headed, but was now going grey and would soon be greyer, a fact to which the abundance of white hairs among the black could testify. There could not have been a greater contrast between husband and wife: the one frail and shambling, the other vigorous and purposeful, even in grief.

I was just about to accost them, when a man wearing the Gloucester livery stepped into my path.

‘Serifaber,’ he said, addressing Bertram, ‘is this the pedlar?’ He jerked his head in my direction.

‘I’m Roger the Chapman,’ I answered with dignity. ‘Who wants to know?’ Although, of course, I could guess.

The man shifted his gaze to me and stared for a moment, much as he might have considered something rather unpleasant that had just crawled out from under a stone. ‘His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester,’ he condescended to say at last. ‘He commands your presence at Baynard’s Castle again this evening. After supper. You’ — he flicked an equally disdainful glance at Bertram — ‘will accompany him.’

Five

Of course, by the time the Duke’s messenger had taken himself off, with a flourish that would have done justice to a preening peacock, Judith and Godfrey St Clair had disappeared; and although I immediately set out in search of them, they had vanished. In all that vast multitude I could see no one dressed in black. Bertram was no wiser as to where they had gone, and was more concerned with the fact that he was to conduct me to Baynard’s Castle that evening.

‘We’d better set out as soon as we’ve finished supper,’ he decided. ‘We don’t want to keep the Duke waiting.’

‘I don’t suppose he’ll return from Westminster that early,’ I argued grumpily. ‘These state banquets can go on for hours. And afterwards, people need a chance to recover.’

‘Not the Duke,’ Bertram disagreed. ‘Eats and drinks very sparingly. An abstemious man.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ I snapped, annoyed that he should think himself better acquainted with Duke Richard than I was. I had known the man on and off — more off than on, admittedly, but well enough — for years. ‘All the same,’ I added, ‘he won’t be able to leave the banquet until the King does.’

We made our return journey, together with the rest of the crowds, along the Strand towards London. By dint of much shoving and pushing, I managed to keep us both on the right-hand side of the road; and as we approached the Fleet Bridge, I grabbed the wrist of my nearest neighbour.

‘Do you know who owns that house?’ I asked, nodding towards the third of the three smaller houses.

The man shook his head. ‘Sorry, friend! I’m from Clerkenwell.’

But I didn’t give up. I just stood there, getting roundly cursed for my pains, asking anyone willing to humour me the same question. My chief hope was that Judith and Godfrey St Clair would turn up, but there was no sign of them.

Eventually, I got an answer. I had stopped a woman for no better reason than that her black homespun gown and hood suggested that she too might be in mourning. And, as it turned out, I was right.

‘Why do you want to know?’ she demanded. ‘Who are you?’ She caught sight of my companion’s livery and modified her tone somewhat. ‘Are you with him?’

‘I am. He’s a member of the Duke of Gloucester’s household.’

‘I can see that,’ the woman replied tartly. ‘But you still haven’t answered my questions.’

She was small, in height only up to my shoulder, thin as a whippet, with a sallow complexion made even sallower by her sombre clothes. She wasn’t old, but nor was she in the first flush of youth. If pressed, I would have said she was somewhere in her middle thirties. Her eyes were her most arresting feature, being so dark in colour that they seemed to be all pupil.

‘And you haven’t answered mine,’ I retorted, nettled. ‘Do you know who this house belongs to or not? I’ve been told that the middle one is the property of Judith and Godfrey St Clair, and the one to its left is the home of a certain Lydia and Roland Jolliffe.’

The woman regarded me silently for a moment or two, then her thin lips cracked into a quirky half-smile, half-grin.

‘Mmm. You’ve been told a great deal, haven’t you, master? I wonder who by.’ When I failed to volunteer the information, she went on, ‘As it so happens, I’m Paulina Graygoss, housekeeper these many years to Judith St Clair. The house you’re enquiring about belongs to Martin Threadgold, bachelor. His younger brother, who died six years ago, was my mistress’s second husband. Are you satisfied now?’ And she moved towards the door of the middle of the three houses, producing a key from the pouch attached to her girdle and inserting it into the lock. Then she turned and looked over her shoulder.

‘You still haven’t answered my second question,’ she reminded me. ‘Who are you?’

Before I could think of a suitably vague explanation, Bertram huffed importantly, ‘This is Roger Chapman. He’s an agent of my master, the Duke of Gloucester.’