The Burgundian's tale

‘I tell you what,’ Lionel said, ‘come back with me to the workshop. My mother’s there today, helping out, as two of the girls are sick with the bellyache. She knows a great deal more about Judith and her household than I do. She gets all the gossip from Paulina Graygoss. You couldn’t exactly call them friends, but Mother has a knack of wheedling information out of people.’

‘Thank you. I’ll do that if you think Mistress Broderer won’t mind.’

Lionel roared with laughter. ‘Mind! She’ll welcome you with open arms. Apart from the fact that she’s fond of a good-looking young man, she’ll be delighted with any excuse to rest her eyes a while. She finds some of the close work more trying than she cares to let on.’

I glanced at Bertram. ‘Do you want to come?’

But I wasn’t surprised when he refused, giving as his reason that he ought to get back to Baynard’s Castle and report to Timothy Plummer. Time spent in the company of someone old enough to be Lionel Broderer’s mother lacked excitement. So I said goodbye to him, finished my ale and followed Lionel across the street to Needlers Lane.

Martha Broderer was as pleased to see me as her son had predicted, rising from her stool to embrace me warmly before planting a smacking kiss full on my lips.

‘This is a pleasant surprise,’ she said with a smile. ‘I was only saying to Lal yesterday that I wished you would pay me a visit.’

‘For any particular reason?’ I asked.

She punched me playfully, and rather harder than I cared for, in the ribs. ‘Are you fishing for compliments, my lad? If so, you won’t get them from me.’ But she winked broadly, nonetheless.

I blushed and denied the accusation, conscious of the giggling girls behind me. I had imagined — I don’t know why — that Dame Broderer would be helping at the table where the purses and belts were decorated; but it became obvious that she was assisting, if not actually directing, two other women who were embroidering a magnificent cope.

‘For the Bishop of Bath and Wells,’ she told me, noticing my interest. And indeed I might have guessed, had I thought about it, by the border of white saltire crosses worked on a blue background: the cross of Saint Andrew. She eyed me curiously. ‘Do you know Robert Stillington?’

I laughed. ‘I’ve seen him, of course — I come from that part of the country — but only at a respectful distance. Do I look the sort of man who would be on speaking terms with a bishop?’

‘False modesty doesn’t become you.’ Martha Broderer rapped me sharply across the knuckles with her spectacles (I had seen her whip them off her nose the moment I came in). ‘You don’t look the sort of man who’s on speaking terms with a royal duke, but you are.’ She went on, ‘A strange man, the Bishop. I always think there’s something a little shifty about him.’

‘He was very friendly with the late George of Clarence,’ I offered in support of her statement. ‘I’ve always been convinced that there was some intrigue between them. Stillington was arrested round about the same time as the Duke, but later released.’

I watched idly as the other two women laid strand after strand of sapphire-blue silken thread side by side on the linen, then stitched them together to form a solid block of colour.

‘That’s called couching,’ Dame Broderer explained. ‘Now, isn’t it time you told me why Lal’s brought you to visit me? I’m sure there’s a reason, and it isn’t for the sake of my beautiful eyes.’

‘I should just think not,’ her son said jovially. On entering the workshop, Lionel had gone to have a word with the two men, Jeb Smith and Will Tuckett, who were setting up mesh on the wooden frames, preparatory, I guessed, to beginning a new wall hanging. But now he strolled across to join us. ‘He wants to pick your memory, Mother. Do you remember the young boy who used to work in the garden for Cousin Judith?’

Surprisingly, Martha Broderer nodded. ‘Yes. He was called Roger, the same as our friend here, and he was always referred to as Nell’s brother although they had different fathers. Their mother, if I recollect correctly, was called Eleanor Jessop. A pretty girl, widow of a Thames boatman. Judith took her on to be her tiring woman. She died — Eleanor, that is — when Roger was born, and Judith had the boy raised to work in the household. When he was old enough, he started helping William Morgan in the garden and around the house.’

‘You don’t happen to know what became of him?’ I asked, continuing to watch, fascinated now, as one of the women eased herself beneath the sewing frame and began stitching the blue threads from the cope’s other side.

‘Undercouching,’ Dame Broderer informed me briefly before answering my question. ‘He disappeared about two years ago. Just vanished overnight. No one knew why and nobody seemed to care. Certainly Judith made no move to find him.’

‘Who was his father — do you have any idea?’

There was a short but quite audible silence. I was still watching the embroidress, but after a second or two, I turned my head to look enquiringly at Martha Broderer.