[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter (15 page)

'Father Godyer,' I said, 'I've brought you breakfast.' He sat up, peering suspiciously at me from red-rimmed, watery eyes.

'Who - who are you?' he quavered; and when I had enlightened him and explained my part in all the tragic events of the last two days, he shook his head in disbelief. 'That such terrible things should happen under this roof! It doesn't seem possible.'

'You've heard about Master Empryngham?' I asked.

The chaplain nodded. 'The friar, Brother Simeon, looked in on me before he went next door to pray. He told me what had occurred.' I placed the tray on his knees and he took a spoonful of broth, only to choke on it as the tears coursed down his emaciated cheeks. He pushed the bowl away. 'I can't eat it. I can't eat anything. I'm too upset. Gerard, I don't care so much about him, although I know that's a terrible thing to say, and God will rightly punish me for it.

But Jeanette! My lady! She was one of God's chosen from her earliest years. When she was little, I used to think that she would enter the Church and become a nun, but somehow it never happened.' He wiped his face with the back of his hand.

I seated myself on the edge of his bed. 'You've known Lady Cederwell a long time then, Father'?'

'Since childhood. And Gerard. I came here with them from Gloucestershire when my Jeanette married Sir Hugh. His own chaplain had just died and it seemed providential, because otherwise I should have been out of a place.' Gently I pushed the bowl of broth back towards him and offered him the handle of the spoon.

'You must eat something,' I coaxed, 'to keep up your strength. And while you do, you can tell me all about Lady Cederwell. Your Jeanette.' '

Chapter Ten

The chaplain flushed slightly.

'Did I call her that? Yes, yes, so I did. And if I'm honest, it's as a daughter, a real daughter, that I've always thought of her. I've never had any family of my own, you see.' He picked up the spoon and began to drink the broth, already feeling a little happier simply by talking about what was obviously a subject dear to his heart. 'I had no brothers or sisters and my father died before I was born. My mother survived for only a short time after I entered the priesthood. Nor did I have any other kinsfolk in my village.'
 

'Where was that?' I asked as he paused to swallow another mouthful.

'Amongst the Cotswold hills. Sheep,' he added succinctly.

I nodded. I knew what he meant. The best wool in England, in the whole of western Europe, is still spun today from the fleeces of Cotswold sheep. It has brought great riches to our region.

'Go on,' I urged him.

'When I was twenty-four years of age, I went to be chaplain to Lady Cederwell's father, Master Walter Empryngham, near the village of Chipping Campden. (He was a sheep farmer, one of the wealthiest in the district.) That same year - it was the year that the present king's father, the Duke of York, was named Protector when poor King Henry went mad - Jeanette was born. Mistress Empryngham died of milk fever about six weeks later. Jeanette was her only child, and Master Walter's only legitmiate child. Because of that, everyone expected him, after a suitable period, to marry again, but he never did. He remained faithful to his lady's memory.'

'Gerard was Master Empryngham's bastard son?' The priest grunted assent, scraping the last of the broth from the bowl. 'He was four years old when his half-sister was born, and I was told that he'd lived in his father's household since the age of one, a twelve-month before Master Walter got wed. The mother, by all accounts, was a daughter of one of the local cottars, a respectable man who'd have nothing more to do with her once she got herself pregnant, nor with her son. She also died in childbirth - it's a chancy business for women, poor souls - ' I thought silently of Lillis ' - so Master Walter decided to take responsibility for the boy and had him raised, as I say, in his household.'
 

'What sort of status did Gerard enjoy'?'

The chaplain shrugged, blowing his nose again in his piece of linen and plumping up his pillows so that he could lean back more comfortably against them.

'It was rather a strange position thinking about it now, although it didn't particularly strike me so then. Sometimes Master Walter treated him like a son, and at others as one of the underlings.' Father Godyer pursed his thin lips judiciously. 'I suppose the best way to describe Gerard's treatment by Master Walter, as by everyone else, was as a highly privileged servant who mostly got away with things, but occasionally was forcibly reminded of his place.'
 

'In other words, the sort of treatment that is bound, sooner or later, to breed bitterness and resentment.'

When he had finished sneezing, the chaplain nodded.

'I think the lad did feel in some sort aggrieved, but he was wise enough not to show it openly. He liked the perquisites attendant on his position as an Empryngham albeit a left-handed one - too much to risk offending Master Walter. And to give Master Walter his due, he did have a genuine affection for the lad.'

I grimaced. 'So you had a father who was fond of his son, and a son who was fond of what his father could give him. Am I right?'

It was the chaplain's turn to draw down the corners of his mouth. 'I'm afraid so. But it was you, yourself, who suggested that Gerard had small cause to be grateful. Dogs which are fondled one minute and kicked the next never grow into loving animals. Moreover, bastard children are always in an unenviable position, particularly those who are both male and older than the heir. But - and here is the contradictory element in the story - Gerard worshipped his little half-sister. Not,' he added with a sentimental sigh, 'that it was surprising. Jeanette was a sweet and pretty child who grew into an even sweeter and lovely young girl.' There was a long pause before Father Godyer went on, almost inaudibly, 'Too sweet and lovely for her own good.'

I waited, but when he seemed disinclined to continue, I prompted, 'Why do you say that?' He made no answer, so I changed the subject, asking, 'Was she always inclined to the religious life?'

This obtained an immediate response. 'From her earliest years she was extremely spiritual, and was never happier than on her knees, either in church or at her prie-dieu.' The chaplain must have seen something in my face, for his own immediately assumed a sour, closed expression
·
'You find that strange, Chapman?'

'Somewhat,' I admitted
.
'Children should surely have their fair share of naughtiness and of mischief-making.'
 

'Why? There are those people on this earth who are born to be better than the rest of us, to do God's work, and we should thank the Virgin and all the saints for them
.
' The rheumy eyes grew dreamy
.
'Jeanette's own favourite saint was Alphege. She dedicated her chapel in the Saxon tower to him.'
 

I felt this to be appropriate. Aelfheah, to give him his Saxon and not his Norman name, had been Archbishop of Canterbury under King Ethelred Unraed, and had suffered martyrdom at the hands of the invading Danes; an uncompromising man who had led a bleak life, and met an even bleaker death unflinchingly, secure in the righteousness of his faith
.
And not for the first time, I knew a pang of envy for such certainty, but as usual I kept these thoughts to myself
.
I have always had one sort of courage, but not the kind to suffer the tortures of the damned for what I believe in. But there again, I have never been absolutely sure what that is.

'How did Master Empryngham get along with his daughter?' I inquired
·

Father Godyer was shaken by a spasm of coughing. When it subsided, he said, 'He had little to do with her, being a girl. He passed her over to the women of the household and left her upbringing in their charge. Such masculine affection as there was in her life came from Gerard and from me.' He hastened to add, 'I was her confessor, her spiritual adviser, you understand. Whatever paternal feelings I had for her were ... were in that capacity
.
'

I removed the tray from his knees and placed it on the floor beside the bed.

'Naturally. Did Master Empryngham show no interest in her at all?'

The chaplain screwed up his face. 'She was his child. His heir. He was careful to ensure that she had everything in life which should rightfully be hers, but he found her extreme piety difficult to fathom.' He flung up a hand, the back covered in a tracery of fine blue veins
.
'You must not run away with the idea that Master Walter was not a devoted son of Holy Church, but there are those people who find saintliness hard to cope with.'

I restrained myself from agreeing too vehemently, letting him ramble on in the hope that he would eventually return to that point in his discourse which had so intrigued me: why he thought that Jeanette Empryngham had been too sweet and lovely for her own good. At the age of sixteen, it appeared, she had declared her intention of never marrying. She would be no bride but the bride of Christ.

'What happened,' I asked, 'to make her change her mind?'

The chaplain's face darkened and his bloodless lips set in a hard, thin line. For a moment, I thought my curiosity was about to be thwarted a second time, but then he said baldly, 'She was raped.'

Even I was shocked into silence. At last I said, 'Who was the villain?'

'One of her father's shepherds. I can't recall his name, if I ever knew it. Jeanette used, on occasions, to walk up to the pastures when the flocks were out to graze. She loved the hills. This fellow must have lusted after her in his heart for some while until, one day, he could no longer control himself.'
 

'No one was with her?'

'It was her father's land. Why should she fear for her safety? The shepherds were her friends.'

'What happened to the man?'

'He ran away. What else could he do? He must have been terrified by the consequences of his crime, once he had slaked his desire and come to his senses. Of course, Master Walter raised the hue and cry. Every able-bodied man for miles around went after the blackguard, but sad to say, he cheated the gallows. He was found after two days. He had been set upon and killed by outlaws, who left his body to rot in a ditch. Justice had been done, but the damage he had wrought could not be undone.'

'Yet, surely,' I urged, 'Lady Cederwell's decision to enter a convent could only have been reinforced by what had happened to her. Who prevented this, and why? Was it her father's doing?'

The chaplain shook his head. 'No, no! Just the opposite. Master Walter now saw it as the only solution for Jeanette. Who, after all, would want to marry spoiled goods?'
 

'So?'

'It was the girl herself who refused to take the veil. She saw her presence as defiling any sisterhood that she might enter, and therefore renounced all intention of becoming a nun. Master Walter was furious. He began to see her as a permanent burden upon his resources, the spinster daughter always at home. Moreover, the effect of her ordeal upon Jeanette was to make her spend even more time praying and fasting, locked away long hours together from all those around her, until, I am sorry to say, most of the household lost patience with her. In the end, there were only Gerard and myself to whom she could turn for sympathy and understanding.'

The miserable little room had grown so icy cold, that I was beginning to shiver. I was too intrigued by the chaplain's story, however, to return just yet to the warmth of the kitchen.

Instead, I picked up his rusty black cassock, which had been thrown down on top of a chest when he took to his bed, and wrapped myself in it. Father Godyer raised no objection.

'But Master Empryngham's fears obviously proved to be ill founded,' I said. 'Someone did offer for his daughter's hand. When and how did Sir Hugh happen to meet her?'
 

'About a year later, he was in the neighbourhood of Gloucester, visiting a cousin.' (I recollected that Dame Judith had told me as much.) 'And from there, he rode north with his kinsman to visit a mutual friend who lived near Chipping Campden. This friend, in his turn, was a friend of Master Walter, and so Sir Hugh and my lady met. It was within a month of their first encounter that my master suddenly died, failing down in some kind of fit while he was at supper one afternoon, and from which he never recovered. He lingered for a couple of days, but we all knew he'd been touched by death. He knew it himself, and in his dying hours laid two commands upon Jeanette. The first was to take care of Gerard, even though he was, by now, married and in his twenty-first year, and the second was to accept Sir Hugh's offer of marriage, should he make one.'

'Master Empryngham was fairly certain, then, that Sir Hugh wanted to marry her?'

'Oh yes! We all were. She was sixteen, young enough to be his daughter - indeed, we discovered later that he had a son of almost the same age - and I think that was the attraction for him. That and her money, especially when her father died and she inherited everything he had.'
 

I smiled. 'You're a cynic, Father.'

He hotly refuted the accusation. 'I am a realist. There is a world of difference.'

'Perhaps,' I acknowledged, unwilling to offend him. 'Pray continue. I don't need to ask if Lady Cederwell did as she was bidden.'