The Tintern Treasure (20 page)

Adela still looked worried. ‘You say Bristol is notoriously Yorkist in sympathy and I know it to be a fact. But that was in the past when Edward was king. Is there the same loyalty, do you think, to King Richard? Especially since the rumours of his nephews' deaths?'

I frowned. She had a point, I had to admit. Adherents of the House of York had just risen in rebellion against Richard's assumption of the crown, and the heart of the revolt had been here, in the south and west. Nevertheless, I still felt sure that if there were indeed a conspiracy in the city it had nothing to do with the landing and invasion of a Tudor force. I had no real reason for this certainty, but I had, over the years, learned to trust my instincts and deliberately closed my mind against the idea that they might be wrong.

Adela changed the subject for one nearer her heart. ‘Roger, this Walter Gurney! You say you were unable to speak to him. That he had run away. There's no chance then that he could return to Gloucester and offer to marry the woman you mentioned?'

‘Jane Spicer? No.' I shook my head wearily. ‘Whether he really has run away or whether he's hiding somewhere on the Despenser manor makes no difference. He's made it plain that he has no intention of going home.'

My wife took a deep breath. ‘But in that case what will happen when . . .?'

I knew what she was going to ask. A question to which, as yet, I had no ready answer, and it was with a feeling of enormous relief that I welcomed the children as they suddenly burst into the kitchen with cries of, ‘We didn't know you were home!' followed inevitably by, ‘What have you brought us?'

Fortunately for my already tarnished reputation, I had had the forethought to purchase some sweetmeats – sugared violets and rose petals – before finally quitting Keynsham. They were, by now, a somewhat sorry, sticky mess, wrapped as they had been in a scrap of rag-paper and thrust into the depths of my pouch, but Elizabeth and the boys seemed not to notice as they devoured them in less time than it takes to tell. They made no comment on Richard's disappearance except to say that they had all beaten him at fivestones, an abstention that pleased me greatly. Nor, I noticed, did they refer to him as ‘uncle' any more, another cause for satisfaction. I had a sneaking suspicion that this might be Adela's doing, but I didn't enquire too closely. I preferred to believe that it was the children's own choice.

Adela had not long sent them off to bed – after a Herculean tussle to make Adam wash his face and hands, an act he considered altogether unnecessary – and we had retired to the greater comfort of the parlour, when a knock on the street door heralded the return of Richard Manifold.

‘The Breton ship has been searched,' he announced bluntly, dispensing with the courtesy of greetings, ‘and there's no one onboard the captain can't account for.' Of course there wasn't, not if he was being handsomely paid for conveying his illicit passenger safely back to Brittany. ‘Nor,' Richard continued, ‘could we find anyone stowed away in any part of the ship. All right,' he added grimly, noting the expression on my face, ‘if the man you saw is still aboard, then he's probably disguised as a member of the crew. But without knowing what he looks like, we can't accuse him. The sheriff wants to know if there is the slightest chance that you might recognize him.'

‘No,' I said. ‘Not to be certain. When's the ship sailing?'

‘Tomorrow morning, on the first tide.'

‘Well . . .' I was beginning doubtfully, but Adela cut me short.

‘No,' she said, addressing Richard Manifold, a determined set to her mouth. ‘Roger is not getting embroiled in this. I scent danger, and he's been in enough of that this past spring and summer.' She turned to me. ‘I forbid you to have anything more to do with this affair.'

Our guest snorted with laughter. ‘He won't be able to help himself, my dear. When have you ever known your husband to keep that long nose of his out of any trouble that's going? It's against his nature. Roger, if you would only . . .'

I suddenly felt extraordinarily weary. There were a number of queries that needed answering, not least what was the connection – if, indeed, there was one – between the man I had followed and Gilbert Foliot? How did the former come to have a key to the goldsmith's old house over and behind the shop? Why . . .? But here my mind balked at any more questions. I had not completely got over my illness of the summer, and although, in a general way, I had recovered my health and strength, there were still times when the lassitude would reassert itself.

‘I'm sorry, Richard,' I smiled, ‘but you heard Adela. This seems to me like an affair of state, and therefore none of my business. Tender my apologies to the sheriff, but tell him I would be unable to identify this man. I didn't really see his face.'

Richard looked sceptical, but he knew when he was beaten. Once Adela had ranged herself on my side, there was nothing more to be said. When, finally, he had gone, after one last half-hearted attempt at persuasion, I put my arms about her and kissed her lingeringly.

She was having none of that. ‘Bed,' she said firmly, ‘but to sleep. You're worn out.'

She was right. I was snoring almost as soon as my head touched the pillow. I don't know how much later it was when I felt her hand shaking my shoulder.

‘Wake up, Roger,' Adela hissed in my ear. ‘There's someone downstairs. Someone's trying to get into the house.'

I
heaved myself into a sitting position, knuckling my eyes like a child.

‘I can't hear anything,' I mumbled.

Adela shook my arm. ‘Listen!' she urged.

I forced myself awake, resisting the temptation to collapse back on my pillow and be engulfed once more in sleep. After a moment or two, I could hear faint sounds as though someone, somewhere, were rattling a shutter. Sleep went flying. Immediately, I was out of bed, pulling on my shirt and reaching for my cudgel, my trusty ‘Plymouth Cloak', which I always kept standing in one corner. As I moved towards the door, it opened and a small figure in a nightshirt stood on the threshold.

‘Noises downstairs,' announced Adam.

‘I know.' I patted his head. ‘Go back to bed.'

He shook his head. ‘I'm coming, too.' He produced his right hand from behind his back. ‘I've got my knife.'

‘Sweetheart, leave this to your father,' Adela ordered, alarm bringing her swiftly to my side as she made a grab for her younger son.

Adam was too quick for her, moving halfway down the stairs before she could reach him. ‘I'm a man now,' he insisted. ‘I have a knife.'

‘I said it was a mistake to let him keep it,' Adela whispered accusingly.

‘Well, it's done now,' I hissed in return, guilt making me snappish. ‘And this is no time to start an argument.' I followed Adam downstairs, but at the bottom caught him by the tail of his nightshirt, pushing him behind me. ‘Stay here,' I ordered, ‘and don't move until I call you.' Needless to say, I had no intention of calling him. ‘I'm just going to look around.'

He gave me one of those white-eyed looks, as much as to say he knew that I was lying, but the thick darkness seemed to have subdued him a little and he nodded, sitting down on the bottom step.

I stood still, listening carefully. The noises had stopped for the moment and, except for those small creaks and groans which every house makes at night, as beams settle and doorposts shrink, all was as silent as the grave. Then they began again, and I located them as coming from the kitchen.

Grasping my cudgel even more tightly, I tiptoed forward, pausing in the open doorway to let my eyes become accustomed to the gloom. I could see no one ahead of me, but was there someone lurking behind the door, waiting to attack if I ventured further in? Carefully, with my left hand, I eased the door open as wide as it would go, but it met with no obstruction. The kitchen was empty – except for Hercules who, I realized suddenly, was sitting as still as a statue beneath the window, head raised and teeth bared, waiting for the would-be intruder to finish sawing through a third slat of one of the shutters. Two had already been removed and the gap was now almost wide enough for a hand and arm to reach in and lift the wooden crossbar that held them closed.

I trod silently across and patted his head, marvelling at the intelligence which had prompted him to try to catch the thief instead of raising the alarm and frightening the man away. I ranged myself alongside the dog, hardly daring to breathe . . .

There was a sudden clatter loud enough to wake the dead. Adam, tired of doing as he was told and emboldened by the apparent lack of action, had followed me into the kitchen to find out what was going on. It was only a day or two since Adela, disgusted by the sodden mess that had been Hercules's wooden drinking bowl, had provided the animal with a pottery one, and it was this that my son had accidentally kicked halfway across the floor. Hercules, thinking we were being attacked in the rear, began to bark at the top of his voice, scaring Adam who then began to yell. Furiously, I shouted at them both to be quiet and Adela, frightened half out of her wits by the noise, came running downstairs, calling out to know what was the matter.

The would-be intruder fled. Naturally!

Spitting oaths that even I didn't know I knew, I ran to the street door and flung it open, but Small Street was empty. The rats, busy scavenging among the refuse of the central drain, were the only sign of life. I was just about to step outside to investigate further, when the recollection that I was barefoot and wearing nothing but a shirt sent me hastily back indoors.

Adela had by now managed to quieten both the dog and our son, but Elizabeth and Nicholas, roused by all the commotion, had arrived in the kitchen to find out what was going on. They were interestedly inspecting the damaged shutter and at the same time warding off the pangs of night hunger by devouring two of the meat and dried plum pasties which Adela had made specially for my dinner the following day. (My favourites.) Even as I watched, outraged, Adam, his tears dried, helped himself to the last two from the plate on the table, one of which he gave to Hercules. Speechlessly, I surveyed them all.

Adela began to laugh.

‘This could only have happened to us,' I stormed at my wife the following morning. ‘There is no discipline in this house!'

I was not feeling my best. I had been forced, for reasons of safety, to spend the rest of the night in the kitchen, and although I had dragged one of the armchairs in from the parlour, even piled with cushions it had not been conducive to sleep. I was tired, cross and out of sorts.

The children, scoffing bowls of porridge at the table, kept giving me cautious, sidelong glances, but seemed undisturbed by my ranting. For this, their mother's faintly amused reaction to my behaviour was largely responsible. They always took their cue from her.

‘Sit down and eat your breakfast,' Adela advised, placing a fried bacon collop in front of me. ‘You can go round to John Carpenter's as soon as you've finished. He'll put things to rights in no time.' She added, ‘You shouldn't really be having meat on a Friday, so keep quiet about it, but I thought you deserved a special treat.'

‘Is that all you have to say?' I demanded angrily, but nevertheless wiping my knife on the hem of my tunic before attacking the bacon ravenously. ‘Doesn't it worry you that someone tried to break into this house last night?'

‘Of course it worries me,' was the indignant reply. ‘But you know what the streets of this city are like at night. Full of thieves and villains. If I'm truthful, it surprises me that no one has attempted to rob us until now. With your growing reputation as someone close to the king – thanks largely to Margaret and her precious friends – everyone mistakenly imagines we're a lot richer than we are.'

I grunted, but said nothing. It was the most reasonable explanation of what had happened and yet it didn't satisfy me. I had no idea why not, so judged it better to keep my doubts to myself and changed the subject.

‘And what about my meat and dried plum pasties? Between them, these three' – I made a sweeping gesture with my knife – ‘and Hercules have eaten the lot. I don't mind about the dog. He displayed more good sense than the rest of you put together. If everything had been left to him and me, we'd have caught the intruder red-handed. Instead of which . . .' I broke off, unable to find the words in which to express my outraged feelings. After a few ineffectual gobbles, I resumed, ‘It's what I was saying! There's no discipline in this household. You three do just as you like, especially you, Adam. You disobey my orders, you eat my pasties . . .'

‘Oh, for the sweet Virgin's sake!' Adela exclaimed impatiently, finally sitting down to her own breakfast. ‘I'll make another batch this morning, I promise. There are still enough dried plums left from the autumn‘s picking. Just finish your meal, Roger, and get round to see John Carpenter. The sooner that shutter is mended the happier I shall be. The kitchen is freezing with all that cold November air coming in. Perhaps, while you're out, you should report the matter to Richard, as well.'

‘He won't be interested,' I snorted. ‘It'll be just one of a dozen such incidents to him.' I stuffed the last chunk of bacon into my mouth and laid down my knife. ‘I'll go and see John Carpenter right away.' I wagged an admonitory finger at Adam. ‘And don't think you've heard the last of this night's escapade, my lad! I shall be speaking to you when I get back.'

I didn't wait for his customary wide-eyed look of suffering innocence, but left the house immediately before I could be seduced by it.

I was lucky enough to find the carpenter still at home in St Leonard's Lane, but only just. As I approached his door, it opened and he came out carrying his bag of tools.

‘You as well?' he said when I had explained my errand. ‘I'm afraid you'll have to wait a while, Roger. Lawyer Heathersett's house and chambers were also broken into last night, but he wasn't as fortunate as you. The thief managed to get in and, as far as I understand it, ransacked the place.'