The Burgundian's tale

She gave me a limpid smile, but her eyes just failed to meet mine.

‘Who can say? The boy might have been anyone’s. Does it matter?’

I didn’t answer directly. ‘Your son remembers this young Roger as a heftier child than Nell. Is that your recollection, too?’

Again, there was a certain hesitation. Martha Broderer gave a little laugh. ‘Almost everyone is heftier than Nell,’ she prevaricated.

‘Roger was a solid lad, Mother,’ Lionel protested. ‘You know he was. Now I come to think of it, he reminded me very much of what I was like as a child.’

Dame Broderer made no comment, but replaced her spectacles on the bridge of her nose and turned her attention back to the Bishop’s cope. She took a huge medallion of azure velvet from a neighbouring table and placed it carefully in the centre of the garment.

‘We’ll embroider this with cloth of gold and silver thread,’ she decided. ‘It will be the centre-piece when His Grace turns his back to the congregation.’

The woman who had been undercouching heaved herself up from beneath the frame and gave it as her opinion that a smaller medallion of white velvet, sewn into the centre of the blue and embroidered, in its turn, with golden thread, would be even more eye-catching. Martha Broderer said tartly that she thought it might be overdoing things, but then, on reflection, and given the vanity of the Bishop, perhaps not.

The third woman, who had so far said nothing, suddenly addressed me. ‘You were asking about the boy who used to work in Judith St Clair’s garden. Nell Jessop’s half-brother.’ I nodded. ‘Well, you know, I thought I saw him the other day when I was going to visit my sister, in Holborn. I was walking up Faitour Lane. I can’t be certain, but it looked like him, only a little older.’

‘Faitour Lane?’ Dame Broderer asked sharply. ‘What would he be doing there?’

The woman flushed uncomfortably, glancing askance at Lionel and me. ‘He … He was coming out of one of the whorehouses,’ she said.

Sixteen

‘One of the whorehouses?’ Lionel repeated, his tone a mixture of shock and envy. ‘How old did you say this boy is now?’

‘Twelve,’ Dame Broderer answered, frowning. ‘But I don’t think Cicely meant what you’re thinking, Lal. I think it was something far worse.’ And she raised her eyebrows at the woman she had named.

Cicely made no answer, but pulled down the corners of her mouth. Her companion gave a little gasp, though she didn’t falter in her couching. The lines of blue silk continued to grow into a soft, cushioned background for another white saltire cross.

There was an uncomfortable silence; then Lionel said, ‘You’re surely not implying …?’

His mother nodded. ‘That’s right. I take Cicely to mean that young Roger is not availing himself of women’s services, but is offering them, himself. The vice of the Greeks, Lal, is what we’re talking about.’

‘If the Church found out …’

Martha Broderer snorted with laughter and turned to me.

‘Although, by my calculations,’ she explained, ‘Lionel is some thirty years old, you’ll find him innocent for his age, as an unmarried man living at home with his mother naturally tends to be. My dear boy,’ she went on, once more addressing her son, ‘you can believe me when I tell you that brothels of both sexes are owned by some of the most eminent and outwardly respectable churchmen in the land. The great sin in their eyes is not sodomy, but being found out. Being caught in the act. Getting the whorehouse shut down and losing them — the landlords — money. Then, of course, the poor souls so taken can expect no mercy from Mother Church.’

Lionel did redden slightly at his parent’s derision, but seemed to bear her no ill will for it, merely grinning a little sheepishly and hunching his shoulders. She smiled back at him, her whole face alight with affection. I had been right in my estimation of these two: they understood one another.

I looked at the woman, Cicely. ‘Can you remember,’ I asked, ‘whereabouts in Faitour Lane this particular brothel is located?’

She blinked reproachfully.

‘No, no! Not for myself,’ I added hastily. ‘I need to speak to this boy, not make use of his services.’ My manhood was insulted by even having to clarify this fact.

She blushed and muttered, ‘Of course! Of course!’ by way of an apology, before continuing, ‘About halfway along on the left-hand side if you’re walking north, towards Holborn.’

‘You see, chapman,’ Lionel said proudly, putting an arm around Dame Broderer’s shoulders, ‘my mother has been of use to you. I said she would be. She has a prodigious memory.’

‘Nonsense! It’s Cicely who’s been of use,’ his mother disclaimed, trying not to look too pleased at the compliment, and failing. ‘Why do you want to speak to this child?’ she enquired of me. ‘What has he to do with Master Quantrell’s murder?’

‘I have information that Fulk visited a boy in Faitour Lane — whether to make use of his services or for some other reason, I don’t really know — but I have a fancy that this young Roger may be the lad.’

‘Why?’ Lionel wanted to know.