The Christmas Wassail (16 page)

We had visited friends and neighbours in the vicinity and further afield, while our own little house had been crammed to capacity by those same friends and neighbours returning our calls. Most people I recognized, but there were quite a few I didn't, animal and bird masks being worn by many, especially the young. And, as I have already said, by mid-evening I was in no state to recognize anybody, being fit only for my bed. Not that I sought it, of course. I remember standing on someone's table, along with a few other choice souls, singing at the top of my voice. (Regrettably, I can't sing because I have no ear for music, and produce the most distressing sounds.) I remember, too, having a fight with Burl Hodge – what about neither of us had the slightest recollection next day – staggering around in the street and eventually falling into the central drain. Even that, and the fact that Burl got bitten on the leg by a rat, didn't sober us. Our enmity forgotten, we just lay there, on our backs, staring up at the starry night sky and laughing inanely like a couple of fools. Finally, members of the Watch, condemned to seeing everyone but themselves get roaring drunk, came and rounded us up, sending us all back to our respective homes to sleep off the results of the wassail and wake to splitting headaches in the morning.

Be sure that Nemesis had her revenge. Retribution was sharp and painful. I do not remember ever having been so ill either before or since.

‘I must have been poisoned,' I moaned to Adela halfway through the following morning when, sitting up in bed, white, shaken and very weak, I was myself again and the ghastly consequences of the previous night seemed to be over.

‘Nonsense!' she retorted. She was at her most unsympathetic, but I have discovered from long experience that wives usually are where strong drink is involved. ‘How could you possibly have been poisoned?'

‘Easily,' I snapped, ‘if someone's ale had turned sour. Kept in a dirty barrel for too long. I tell you, Adela, I've been sick in the past, and I've had some splitting heads, but never anything like I've experienced tonight. Fortunately, I've always been able to rid myself very quickly of anything bad. My mother maintained that I had one of the most sensitive bellies she'd ever known. I must have eaten or drunk something that was rotten last night.'

‘I'm all right,' was the acid rejoinder, ‘and I ate and drank everything that you did.'

‘You couldn't have done,' I said positively.

I didn't blame her for this lack of sympathy. As is a woman's lot, she had borne the brunt of the clearing up, the emptying of slop buckets, the mopping up of the bedchamber floor, the extra washing and drying of sheets – and this in December – that such upsets entail. Moreover, I had no means of proving my theory, only a knowledge of my own body and, consequently, a growing conviction that this was no ordinary aftermath of drunkenness.

My suggestion of ale which had turned sour was, on the face of it, the most sensible one, but as I lay in bed, listening to the morning household sounds going on below me, the gnawing suspicion that someone might deliberately have tried to kill me gradually tightened its grip. It could so easily have happened. Something dropped in a beaker of ‘lamb's wool' which had then been handed specifically to me and the thing was done. There had been such a crowd of people not only in our own, but in every house and cottage we had visited that it would be impossible to guess where or when or by whom such an act was committed.

But who would want me dead? Whose toes was I treading on that he or she might feel it imperative to remove me? Was someone growing afraid that I was getting too close to the truth concerning Alderman Trefusis's murder? If the killer were indeed this Miles Deakin, he could still be in the city in disguise, using another name, waiting to wreak his vengeance on Sir George. Maybe he had already taken his revenge: the knight was certainly missing and no one seemed able to find him. It was a time of year when nobody questioned the wearing of masks; when people ate too much and drank too much, so that sickness and even sudden death were rarely queried.

I dared not share these thoughts with Adela. On the one hand, they would alarm her and, on the other, in order to quell those alarms, she would do as she always did and accuse me of letting my imagination run away with me. And who was to say that she wasn't right? I had no shred of proof that my suspicions had foundation. They were entirely without substance and it was only my instinct that warned me to tread carefully in the near future.

Today was the fifth day of Christmas, and from now until the eleventh day – the Eve of Epiphany or the Eve of Twelfth Night, whichever you preferred to call it – the celebrations abated and normal life temporarily resumed. There would be far less feasting and drinking; indeed, none at all for poorer folk like me and my family. I had plenty of time to recover my health and strength. Happily, I have always had great recuperative powers, and even at the advanced age of thirty-one I was still able to shrug off sickness with comparative ease; far more easily than most people.

Adela knew this as well as I did, so she was not surprised when I tottered downstairs just before dinner. ‘It's only pottage,' she said. ‘Do you feel you can eat it?'

‘I can try,' I answered with forced cheerfulness. ‘Is there any news of Sir George? Has he been found yet?'

‘Not when I last saw Richard. He called about an hour ago to find out where you were and if you were going to join the search again today. I explained that you were at present laid low, but that, knowing you, you would most likely have recovered sufficiently to join him later.'

The older children arrived and took their places around the table looking rather subdued. They had been kept awake part of the night by the sound of my sufferings and were duly impressed by my capacity for regurgitation.

I wasn't too certain about the pottage; it had a distinctly day-before-yesterday's appearance. However, I manfully swallowed a mouthful and then gave a very loud belch. Luke, tied to Adam's baby chair and being spoonfed by Adela, immediately imitated the noise. His foster brothers and sister were enchanted.

‘Do it again, Father,' pleaded Elizabeth, clapping her hands.

‘Certainly not!' I exclaimed indignantly. But then another involuntary gust of wind escaped me.

Luke beamed all over his sweet little face and once more repeated the sound. The other three were ecstatic.

‘How do you do it, Father?' Adam wanted to know, plainly with a view to practising the art himself.

I frowned at him. ‘I don't do it on purpose,' I said. ‘It's just wind escaping from my belly.'

My son nodded sagely. ‘You were ill in the night. I heard you. P'raps it was because of what that bird man put in your beaker.'

Adela, bending over to wipe Luke's mouth, suddenly jerked upright, while I stared at Adam like someone in a trance.

‘What … What bird man?' I asked as soon as I could command my voice. I waited while my son emptied his mouth of an over-large spoonful of pottage, then demanded again, ‘What bird man?'

‘The one who was here last night,' he said. ‘Put something in your ale. I saw him.'

I leant across the table and grasped his wrist to prevent him filling his mouth again. ‘You mean here, in this house? A man wearing a bird mask?'

‘Yes.'

‘What sort of bird mask? What sort of a beak did it have?'

‘Big one. Like this.' With his free hand, Adam drew a great curve in the air over his own little nose. ‘You're hurting my arm,' he added reproachfully.

I released him, recalling as I did so Dame Drusilla's words. ‘A bird mask with a great beak.'

Adela was regarding me, eyes wide with fear. ‘Roger, do you really think that someone …?' She couldn't bring herself to say more.

‘It's possible,' I said grimly. I turned back to my son. ‘Adam,' I asked sternly, ‘are you sure about this? Are you certain that the man in the bird mask put something in my ale?'

‘Yes, I'm certain.' Adam stared at me with all the injured air of one whose word is being doubted.

‘Here? In this kitchen?'

‘I told you! There were some beakers on the table full of that frothy stuff you were all drinking. I saw the bird man drop something in one of them and then give it to you.'

‘And I drank what was in it?'

He shook his head. ‘I don't know. It was getting awful noisy by then and people were acting very silly. I got under the table with Hercules. But I 'spect you did. You were drinking ever such a lot and acting sillier than anybody else.'

I had the grace to blush at this damning indictment and avoided Adela's look of accusation. Instead, I asked, ‘Did you see what it was the bird man dropped in the beaker?'

But Adam was unable to tell me any more than he had done already. I had no doubt at all that it was the truth, for why should he lie? Moreover, it bore out my own suspicions. I thought back, desperately trying to summon up the scene after we had returned from calling on friends and neighbours, when we had acted as hosts; when people had crowded into our little house until it seemed to be bursting at the seams. I had definitely been in the kitchen where a good host should be, dispensing hospitality in the shape of food and drink. But by that time, I was more than a little tipsy and, try as I might, I could recall nothing very clearly. I made a great effort to picture a man in a bird mask, but failed dismally. He had, according to Adam, handed me a drink and had probably wished me, ‘Waes Hael!' Had I said, ‘Drink Hael!' in return? But I could remember no particular voice, only a cacophony of sounds buzzing in my ears like a swarm of bees.

I had been so lost in thought that I'd failed to realize my family were all waiting for me to speak. I cleared my throat and pushed back my stool. ‘You say they're still searching for Sir George?' I asked Adela, and when she nodded, said, ‘I'll join them.'

‘You've hardly touched your pottage,' my wife pointed out anxiously, and I repressed a shudder.

‘My belly's still too upset.' I excused myself.

I was just pulling on my boots, with a little assistance from Bess and Nick, when a knock at the street door heralded the arrival of Richard Manifold. He looked exhausted and Adela fetched him a beaker of ale without waiting to be asked. The two older children vanished upstairs.

‘You still haven't found him, then,' I said, not bothering to make it a question.

Richard shook his head before taking a long, steady, grateful draught of ale. ‘No.'

I frowned. ‘You've searched the crypt under Saint Giles and what remains of the old synagogue foundations? You know there's a secret chamber at the far end?'

Our guest sighed wearily. ‘The answer is “yes” to both questions.'

‘And the underground chamber at Saint Mary Bellhouse?'

‘Yes, yes! I tell you, Roger, I don't think there's a hiding-place anywhere in this city that hasn't been searched. Empty houses, occupied houses, outhouses, the stews, the inns, the alleyways. We've even armed ourselves and ventured into ‘Little Ireland'. We didn't get much cooperation there, as I don't need to tell you, but, in fairness, we weren't obstructed, either. According to them, of course, they're all honest trading folk and I don't doubt some of them are.' He rubbed his nose and sighed again. ‘This morning we've searched Sir George's own house from cellar to attic and Dame Drusilla's, next door, as well. The old lady wasn't best pleased and went so far as to say she hoped her brother had finally got what he deserved and was probably at the bottom of the Frome or the Avon. She really hates him, but I can't pretend any of the family members are showing much concern. They all give the impression that if he never turns up again, they won't be shedding any tears.'

‘What about Patience? Lady Marvell?'

Richard shrugged and finished the remainder of his ale. ‘She seems the least concerned of the lot of them.' He paused, biting a fingernail. ‘In some strange way, she seems almost … What can I say? Triumphant. Yes, that's the word. Triumphant. Almost as if it was something she had wanted to happen.' He rose to his feet. ‘I must be off. If we haven't found Sir George by nightfall, the sheriff has decided to call off the search and assume the knight has either drowned or left the city. As you've said yourself, Roger, it isn't an impossible task nowadays to leave without using the gates with the walls in their present state of disrepair. Will you join the search later or is your belly still giving you trouble?'

I indicated my boots. ‘I was just coming to join you when you knocked. The fresh air will do me good.'

Richard grimaced. ‘Be careful, then. It's very cold outside.'

Here, Adam, who had not followed his half-brother and -sister upstairs, but remained in the kitchen, a silent listener to his elders' conversation, broke in to remind me that I had promised to take him to see the mummers again that afternoon. His lower lip was trembling pathetically (a trick he had learned very early in life) and his large brown eyes were full of tears. I could remember no such promise, but to deny him would only provoke the kind of scene I felt unable to cope with at the present time.

I glanced at Richard, who was looking disapproving – he thought me far too lenient a father – and said lamely and untruthfully, ‘I'd forgotten. But I'll join in the hunt again as soon as the mumming is over.'

He nodded abruptly. ‘Go where you like. Covering ground that has already been covered doesn't matter. It's all we can do now.'

N
o one else wanted to see the mummers, so Adam and I went by ourselves. After four days, audiences were inevitably growing thinner and we were able to get close to the cart which doubled as a stage and which already stood, awaiting the players, in the outer ward of the castle. To my son's delight the painted curtain, slung between its poles, indicated that the day's performance was to be his favourite play, St George and the Dragon. Indeed, we were so conspicuously close to the edge of the cart that when young Tobias Warrener made his entrance as St George, he singled Adam out for special attention, pretending to be astonished at seeing him in the audience yet again. Heads were turned and smiles exchanged to see the child jumping up and down with self-importance.