14 - The Burgundian's Tale (6 page)

‘And what were Mistress Alcina’s feelings about her stepmother changing her will?’

‘Oh, she didn’t care. She thought Fulk was going to marry her, you see. She counted on inheriting everything through him.’

I stirred in my chair and sighed. With so many people to suspect of murdering Fulk Quantrell, it was a relief to be able to rule out Alcina Threadgold as well as Judith St Clair.

But I wasn’t going to be let off the hook that easily. A voice spoke scathingly from the parlour doorway. ‘He wasn’t going to marry her! You know very well he wasn’t! You were present when he told her so!’

‘Mother!’ Lionel rose from his seat and hurried across to give his parent a dutiful peck on her cheek.

Dame Broderer, I thought, as I, too, got to my feet, was not at all what I had expected. I had envisaged a much older woman, not the fashionable, well-preserved dame I saw in front of me. She must have been little more than a child when she gave birth to her son.

She seated herself in Lionel’s chair and waved me back to mine.

‘Now,’ she said, eyeing me up and down, ‘who is this? Apart, that is, from being a pedlar and an extremely handsome young man.’ I did my best to look modest. ‘Lal! An explanation, please! You know I don’t like strangers in my house without knowing who they are or what they’re doing here.’

Lionel told her as briefly as he could, helped by the fact that she refrained from interrupting him with pointless questions or exclamations. She simply sat, regarding me steadily with a pair of fine blue eyes, of which her son’s were a pale and smoky copy.

When he had finished, she gave a satisfied nod. ‘Yes, I’ve heard Miles Babcary tell that story about the pedlar as well. So! That was you, was it, Roger Chapman? Then I trust you’ll discover the truth of this sorry affair. It’s high time someone did. There are too many people whispering behind their hands about my boy. Not, of course, that he’s the only one. Brandon Jolliffe and his parents, Godfrey and Jocelyn St Clair – they’re all being pointed at as potential murderers.’

‘But not Mistress Threadgold?’ I queried.

Dame Broderer snorted. ‘She’s escaped the worst of the gossip so far because most people assume she was going to marry Fulk Quantrell. Therefore, in due course, all Judith’s money, not just half, would have come to her through him.’

‘A reasonable assumption,’ I prompted her as she paused.

‘Indeed! If it had been true.’ Dame Broderer turned on her son. ‘Lal, for heaven’s sake pull up a stool and stop looming over me. You’re blocking the daylight.’

Somewhat to my surprise, Lionel made no objection to this reprimand, but did as he was bidden. However, his broad grin indicated an amused tolerance of his mother and her ways rather than intimidation. They understood one another, this pair.

‘Are you saying,’ I asked, ‘that Fulk Quantrell
wasn’t
going to marry Alcina Threadgold?’

Dame Broderer leaned back in her chair. ‘The evening he was murdered, Fulk came round to the workshop to nose and poke about. He had taken to doing that as though he already owned the place. On this occasion, quite by chance, I was also present, collecting a new girdle that I had had embroidered. He hadn’t been there five minutes when Alcina came in, obviously in a towering rage. She immediately started shouting at him, in front of everyone, that he was a liar and a cheat. She’d given him everything and in return he’d promised her marriage.

‘Well, Fulk let her rant and rave for a moment or two, then he turned on her, even more furious than she was. He yelled that he had
never
promised to marry her; that he wouldn’t marry her if she were the last woman on earth. And finally he told her that he couldn’t marry her: he was already betrothed to one of Duchess Margaret’s tiring-women, back in Burgundy.’

‘W
hat happened next?’ I asked.

Dame Broderer shrugged. ‘Fulk stormed off without giving Alcina a chance to reply, and she burst into a flood of tears. As you might expect. Lionel and I tried to comfort her, but she wanted none of us. Shook us off and went after Fulk.’

I raised my eyebrows thoughtfully. ‘And that was the night Master Quantrell was murdered?’

‘It couldn’t have been Alcina,’ Lionel said quickly. ‘She had no weapon with her. And she doesn’t have the strength to beat a man’s head in.’

I saw Dame Broderer give her son a look in which pity and affectionate contempt were blended in equal measure. My hunch had been right then: he did entertain more than friendly feelings for his cousin’s stepdaughter.

‘Anger can give people, even women, an extraordinary strength,’ I pointed out. ‘As for a weapon, Mistress Threadgold might have picked up anything anywhere. I expect London, like Bristol, has its fair share of animal bones – big ones – to be found in the central drains. Also, all sorts of rubbish is mixed in with the rotting carcasses and vegetables; bits of old planking, broken walking sticks and cudgels – in fact anything at all that our good citizens have no use for.’

Lionel glowered and his mother laughed.

‘I’ve told him that, chapman. But my son is sweet on Alcina and won’t hear a word against her. It’s no good trying to deny it, Lal! Our friend here can put two and two together with the best of us. Probably better than most of us, if all that Miles Babcary says is true.’

I let this flattery pass without acknowledgement. ‘What did
you
do, Mistress Broderer,’ I enquired, ‘after the two young people had left?’

‘I came home. Lionel stayed on to lock up the workshop for the night, as Jeb Smith and Will Tuckett will testify.’

Lionel looked surly. ‘I can answer for myself, thank you, Mother.’ He turned to me. ‘But she’s right, chapman. Ask either Jeb or William. I was the last to leave. I always am. I like to make sure that all the candles and wall cressets have been properly doused. I wouldn’t trust the job to anyone else.’

I stroked my chin. ‘I understand from Master Plummer that the murder took place around a fortnight ago, which would put it at the beginning of the month. Was it still light when you locked up the workshop?’

Dame Broderer opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it and shut it again.

‘Not as light as it might have been,’ Lionel admitted after a pause. ‘In fact it was near enough dusk. We were working on a particularly intricate wall hanging for York Place. That’s the Archbishop of York’s house, near the Chère Reine Cross. It was wanted in time for Duchess Margaret’s visit, starting tomorrow. Jeb Smith and Will Tuckett were anxious to get it finished that evening, so they stayed on. I gave them a hand. The others left just after Mother arrived to pick up her girdle.’

‘Always anxious to get off home,’ Dame Broderer grumbled, although it was a grumble that slid easily into a chuckle. ‘But after all who can blame them? I was the same at their age.’ She noted my glance of curiosity and added with perfect frankness, ‘Yes, I was once an embroidress in the Broderer workshops. It wasn’t my good fortune, however, to attract the attentions of its owner, at least not then. By the time Edmund did cast his eyes in my direction, it was far too late. He was married to Judith and I was the relict of his much poorer kinsman, his cousin Jonathan.’ She added with a sigh, ‘Married at fifteen, a mother at sixteen, widowed at twenty. That, briefly, is the story of my life.’

I gave what I hoped was a gallant bow. ‘But you must have had many opportunities to marry again since your husband’s death.’

‘Oh, I’m not lucky in love,’ she said and rose abruptly, smoothing down her skirts. ‘It must be past supper time. Will you stay and eat with us, Master Chapman?’

I shook my head. ‘Thank you, mistress, but no. I must return to the Voyager. I’ve left a young friend there, kicking his heels.’ And I explained about Bertram Serifaber. ‘He’ll be wondering what has happened to me.’

‘What will you do now?’ Lionel asked. ‘About the murder, I mean.’

Before I could reply, Dame Broderer said firmly, ‘He needs an introduction to the household in the Strand. But tomorrow, everyone will be abroad to see the state entrance of the Dowager Duchess into London. Judith won’t miss that. She might even be summoned to wait on Her Highness as an old friend and retainer of the Princess. So call here the day after tomorrow, chapman, and I’ll take you to see Judith and Godfrey then.’

I was tempted to refuse: I have always liked to do things in my own way and my own time. But the dame’s offer would cut many corners, and I knew that Duke Richard would like this murder solved as soon as possible for his sister’s sake.

‘You’re very kind.’ I picked up my pack from where I had dropped it beside my chair, bowed once again to them both and took myself back to the Voyager.

‘Well, I call that very underhand and sneaky,’ Bertram declared somewhat indistinctly, as we ate an excellent supper of stewed neck of veal with leeks and cabbage. ‘I’m the one who’s supposed to be helping you with this case, not some old woman.’

‘Dame Broderer is only in her forties,’ I reproved him.

‘That’s what I said: old.’

‘And,’ I went on severely, ‘she’s a very well-looking woman for her age.’

He would have continued the wrangle, but I suddenly realized how tired I was, how long and busy a day it had been. I had risen at the crack of dawn to continue our journey into London; I had been to Baynard’s Castle to meet the Duke and to the Broderer workshops and Lionel’s home. And even though it was still light, I was ready for my bed. Home, my wife and children seemed as distant from me as the moon. I needed to be quiet, to reorientate my thoughts and let my spirit get in touch with theirs again. So, to Bertram’s great indignation, I suggested he return to the castle as soon as he had finished eating, and inform Timothy Plummer of such progress as I had made so far.

‘Come back early in the morning,’ I said, ‘and we’ll go to see Duchess Margaret’s entry into the city together.’

‘I may. I may not,’ was his lofty parting shot.

But I knew that he would.

I slept badly. I was lonely. Not for the first time in my life, my own company proved to be no satisfaction. I missed Adela. I missed the children. I even missed Adam. I wondered if I were sickening for something.

I awoke, bad-tempered and unrefreshed, to an inn and a city already humming with life and the anticipation of pageantry and spectacle. And by the time I had finished a breakfast of oatcakes and honey, cold boiled mutton and a mazer of ale I, too, was beginning to relish the prospect of seeing a bedecked and bedizened London, ready to welcome home one of its own. Margaret of York had been young, pretty and popular when she had left for Burgundy twelve years earlier. She might now be older, staider, wiser, even plainer, but she would receive the same rapturous applause.

‘The procession’ll be coming through the Ald Gate,’ Bertram informed me, arriving just as I was finishing my meal. ‘Cornhill, the Poultry, Stocks Market, past the Grocers’ and Mercers’ Halls, where the Duchess will be greeted by some of the Guildsmen, then along West Cheap – more greetings, and probably gifts from the goldsmiths: they’re an ingratiating lot – St Paul’s, the Lud Gate and along the Strand to Westminster, where the King and all the royal family will be waiting to greet her. Not the Prince of Wales, of course. He lives at Ludlow.’ Master Serifaber wrinkled his nose in indignation ‘You’ve had boiled mutton!’ he accused me. ‘Not fair! All I had was a pickled herring.’

I laughed. ‘Yes, that sounds like the kind of breakfast I remember at Baynard’s Castle. The Duchess of York isn’t the most generous of providers, if I remember rightly.’

My companion poured the remainder of the ale from the jug into my mazer, and drank. ‘Duchess Cicely’, he said feelingly, ‘expects everyone to lead the same sort of ascetic, religious life as she does at Berkhamsted. I’m glad I don’t belong to her household. Thank heaven Duke Richard is more liberal in his ideas. That’s one thing to be said for living in Yorkshire: plenty of good food.’

He sniffed again, piteously, so I ordered him a plate of boiled mutton and some oatcakes. When, finally, he could make himself understood once more, he enquired, ‘Where do you want to watch the procession? West Cheap or Westminster? Duke Richard, Duchess Anne, Duchess Cicely and all their followers –
hundreds
of ’em: I couldn’t be bothered to count – rode to Westminster very early this morning, so Fleet Street and the Strand should have cleared a bit by now.’

‘I’ll abide by your decision, lad. Whichever you recommend.’

‘Well …’ Bertram ran his tongue around his teeth, making sure that he had found every last scrap of meat. ‘Westminster will be just about as crowded as West Cheap, but with my livery I can probably find us both a place among my lord’s retainers.’ He patted his chest importantly.

‘Then Westminster let it be.’ I got to my feet. ‘At the same time, we can go over the ground again that Fulk Quantrell must have covered the night he was killed. Now, if you’ve finished trying to scrape the bottom out of that plate, we’ll make a start.’

But I had been foolishly optimistic in imagining that our walk to Westminster would provide us with an opportunity to discover any more concerning the Burgundian’s death. The whole journey, beginning in Bucklersbury, on through West Cheap and continuing beyond the Lud Gate, was a nightmare of people pressing in on us from every side. On at least three occasions the crowds were so thick that we were unable to move for several minutes. The first time, it was even difficult to breathe.

It was a pickpocket’s dream of paradise and I congratulated myself that I had the bulk of my money in a pouch strapped around my waist under my shirt and breeches. Mind you, it was a grave disadvantage when what few loose coins I had had been filched and I wanted to buy a meat pie or a jellied eel from a street vendor. These persistent gentlemen (and – women) were as numerous as their criminal associates, and indeed, quite often they worked together, the vendor distracting the customer’s attention while the thief relieved him of his purse. However, either my commanding height and size or the Duke of Gloucester’s blue and murrey livery, worn by Bertram, or perhaps both, gave us a freer passage through the throng than we might have otherwise expected.