[Roger the Chapman 03] - The Hanged Man (10 page)

Cicely came round the side of his chair and knelt down, looking up at him earnestly. 'Dear Edward, I do understand your misgivings, but please let me have my way in this. I feel a great need to find out as much as I can about the reasons for Robert's death. There is so much unexplained, not least the sense that some evil was abroad which set every man's hand against him. Oh, I know what you would say! That Robert himself was the cause, but I refuse to accept that. In part it was true. He was wild, he didn't care who he offended. But that doesn't explain why we all turned on him and believed him guilty of murder, even though there was no body. You and Alderman Weaver have done your best to discover the truth, and failed. So give this young man a chance. The alderman speaks of him in his letter as the person responsible for finding out what happened to his son. If that is so, then maybe he can unravel this mystery for us.' She gripped Edward's sleeve until her knuckles showed white against the russet. 'Please. For my sake, give him leave to try.' I don't know who could have resisted her pleading, the blinding tears in those cornflower-blue eyes. Certainly I could not, and neither it appeared could Edward Herepath, for he heaved a resigned sigh and patted her cheek. 'Dry your eyes, my dear child. If it means so much to you, I'll grant the chapman my blessing, albeit reluctantly.' Cicely gave him a watery smile and rose to her feet, dabbing her eyes with a fragment of embroidered linen.

It was the first time I had ever seen anyone use a handkerchief although they had been a commonplace among the nobility since their introduction almost a hundred years before by King Richard. I had a sudden, vivid picture of how Lillis would look if she cried, red-nosed and sniffing loudly, and could not help contrasting it with the restrained emotion of the girl in front of me. Cicely Ford had completely bewitched me.

Edward Herepath straightened his back, placed the tips of his fingers together and regarded me straitly. 'Very well, young man, as Mistress Ford is so insistent you should try, you have my permission to inquire into Master Woodward's disappearance and find out what you can. Is there anything you would wish to ask me?' Cicely retired once more to the window-seat, out of my line of vision, and I regretfully tore my eyes away to refocus them on her guardian.

'I was wondering, sir, if you could explain how it was that William Woodward came to work for you as your debt collector when he had spent all his life in weaving and, moreover, at an age when his daughter thought him too old to work much longer.'

Edward Herepath frowned. 'Is such questioning strictly necessary? Very well! Very well! I gave my word.' This at a slight stirring behind him from Cicely. He continued testily, 'I cannot recollect all the circumstances. It is almost five years ago. He had never been more than an indifferent weaver. His masterpiece was never accepted by the Guild and he remained a journeyman all his life. The man I employed to collect my rents had recently married a Keynsham girl and had quit my service to live in her home village. He had given me very little prior warning and I needed someone quickly to take his place.'
 

'But why William Woodward?' I persisted.

Edward shrugged irritably. 'I believe, if memory serves me aright, that he asked himself if he might enter my employ. He was tired of living with his daughter. There were disagreements between them, and he knew that the cottage in Bell Lane was my property and always let, rent free, to my debt collector. He fancied his independence and considered himself capable of doing the job.'
 

'But did you?' I persisted. 'William Woodward was not a young man. According to Mistress Walker's calculations, her father must have been in his fifty-ninth year when he abandoned weaving and came to work for you. An advanced age for a man to be still working at the looms, let alone taking up the strenuous task of debt collecting. Did none of these things weigh with you?'
 

Edward Herepath frowned and stirred angrily in his chair. I realized that my questioning had been too blunt and, as well, had probably sounded a note of censure which he rightly resented. He had allowed me to interrogate him as a favour. I must watch my step.

Nevertheless, he answered with only a hint of testiness.

'William Woodward was a big, strong man, well set-up, for all that he was grey-haired. People were a little afraid of him, a little in awe of his size and strength. At least, that was my impression. Yes, I did think him capable of doing the job, and doing it well, and my belief was justified. During the four years he was in my employ, I had fewer bad debts than theretofore. As you may have been told, I have much property both in and around Bristol, and William was adept at making certain the rents were collected. I did not inquire what methods he used to ensure prompt payment. I was merely thankful that the unpleasantness of calling on the sheriff's officers to evict or threaten defaulters became less and less frequent.' Once again, Edward Herepath frowned, but this time it was not I who was the object of his disapproval. 'Perhaps I was wrong not to keep a stricter eye on William. Maybe he made greater enemies than Miles Huckbody, who, I know, swore vengeance on him on more than one occasion.'

'Miles Huckbody?' I queried.

Edward Herepath roused himself from a momentary reverie and, reaching out with one elegantly shod foot, kicked the slumbering fire into life. Flames licked at the edges of the logs, sending shadows soaring. The blues and ochres of the wall-hangings faded, and the reds ran together, mingling like blood.

'What? Oh, Miles Huckbody. His wife and child rented a cottage and field from me near the King's Wood, but the man fell ill and was unable to work the land. His wife struggled as best she could for a while, but the crops dwindled and the pig died and they were eventually unable to produce enough to live on, let alone to sell.' Edward Herepath sighed. 'Instead of consulting me, William took it upon himself to have the family evicted and, by the time I was aware of what had happened, it was too late. They had gone. But Miles Huckbody later reappeared in Bristol. His wife and child had apparently died, and he himself was sick and destitute. He was taken in by the fraternity of the Bons-Hommes, who run the Gaunts' Hospital close by Saint Augustine's Abbey. They clothe, feed and house some hundred poor souls, thanks to the charitable munificence, two centuries or more ago, of Maurice and Henry de Gaunt and their nephew, Robert de Gourney.' He added with civic pride: 'Bristol folk look after their own.'

But not enough, I thought, to prevent their eviction in the first place. On the other hand, business is business, as any Bristolian, then or now, will tell you.

Aloud, I asked, 'And Miles Huckbody is known to have threatened the well-being of Master Woodward?'
 

'So William himself informed me. He met the man once, down in the broad meads, near the house of the Dominican friars, and was roundly abused by Huckbody, who offered him violence, and was only just restrained by fellow inmates from the hospital. Not that William thought himself in any danger. Miles Huckbody was too feeble, he said, to pose any threat or cause him any loss of sleep.'

'All the same,' I said, 'William Woodward had at least one known enemy who wished him harm.'
 

Edward Herepath shrugged. 'More than one I should imagine. He was not a man who endeared himself to people. Blunt, taciturn, and bearing a grudge against the world for the way he felt life had cheated him, is how I would sum up William Woodward. Yet I got on with him well enough, perhaps because I, too, had had my cross to bear.'

He spoke with quiet bitterness, and without stopping to recollect Cicely Ford's presence in the room. Only when she cried out, a sound suppressed almost as soon as it was uttered, did he remember and rise hurriedly to his feet, hands outstretched. 'My dear child! I did not mean... Forgive me! You know I would not willingly add to your grief.'

Cicely dropped her embroidery mad grasped both his hands in hers. 'No, no! There is nothing to forgive. I know how much you had to bear from Robert, how disorderly and disobedient he could be. I know, also, how much he had to be grateful to you for, how you looked after and watched over him all his life from the time he was two years old. No one could have had a kinder, more forbearing brother. He realized it, too, though he could never be prevailed upon to acknowledge it openly. But you and I, dear Edward, both know that under all that wildness, he was good and kind; that there was a real sweetness of nature which would have surfaced after his marriage to me. I could have tamed him. I know I could!' Edward Herepath returned the pressure of her hands, his eyes looking steadfastly into hers. 'Who could doubt it? Your gentleness and beauty are such that they must prevail with any man in time.'

He stooped and kissed one of the hands he was holding, before guiltily dropping both and turning away, an expression of defeated longing on his face. I felt desperately sorry for him, understanding all that he must be suffering, for Cicely Ford was weaving her own brand of magic about me, filling my mind with a strange yearning, conjuring up fantasies of things which could never be.

Edward Herepath resumed his seat beside the fire and glanced up at me. My legs were beginning to ache with inactivity, for he had not offered me a stool. 'Is there anything else you wish to ask?' he inquired.

I hesitated, sensing that his patience was wearing thin, but reluctant to take my leave before I had satisfied my curiosity still further. At last, I ventured, 'You were in Gloucester when the seeming murder of William Woodward occurred.'

'Indeed. I had gone to look over a horse with a view to purchase. An acquaintance of my friend Master Peter Avenel had told me of his intent to sell whilst staying in Bristol a few weeks earlier. The animal sounded exactly suited to my requirements, and I therefore made arrangements to travel north as soon as possible after Master Shottery's return to his native city. I rode to Gloucester on Lady Day and took lodgings for two nights at an inn. This gave me the morrow to look over the horse and make up my mind whether or not to buy, and a third day in which to return home at my leisure, which is exactly how things fell out.' A look of distress contorted his handsome features. 'As it happened, I could well have returned a day earlier, for the purchase was speedily concluded early on the Friday morning, but Master Shottery was unable to offer me hospitality, as his wife, he said, was feeling unwell. However, I decided to adhere to my original plan and remain in Gloucester until the following day.' Cicely said quietly from the window-seat behind him, ‘You must not blame yourself, dear Edward. Your earlier return would have prevented nothing. Little though any of us knew it at the time, the mischief, whatever it was, was already done.'

I asked abruptly: 'You were not anxious, Master Herepath, as to what might have happened in your absence, knowing that you had, at least according to Mistress Walker, inadvertently let slip to your brother that William Woodward was holding the money until you came home?' Edward Herepath's face flushed a dull red beneath its beard. I held my breath, waiting to be dismissed for my impudence, but instead provoking a small, if wintry, smile. 'You take your commission seriously, Master Chapman. Mistress Walker and her daughter appear to have chosen their champion wisely. Very well, yes, I admit to having felt a twinge of uneasiness every now and then. But my brother had been the cause of so much worry throughout his life that I had grown accustomed to such feelings, as one might grow used to the nagging pain of an old wound which, with time, one is able to ignore. Does that answer satisfy you? I trust so, for it's the only excuse I have.'

I gave a little bow. 'You have been more than gracious, Master Herepath, and I thank you for bearing so patiently with my questions. With your permission, I shall now take my leave.'

He rose to his feet once more, good humour restored at the prospect of my departure. And who could blame him? My probing must have awakened many painful memories which he was trying to forget.

'Both Mistress Ford and I hope that we have been of some service to you. Have you any idea, as yet, what could possibly have happened to William Woodward?'
 

I shook my head. 'I confess to being as much in the dark as ever, but I shall certainly seek out this Miles Huckbody and question him. Mistress Ford, your humble servant. And yours, sir. Thank you, and God be with you. If it is not too presumptuous, I shall keep you both in my prayers.'

Chapter Nine

Cicely Ford rose immediately from her place by the window and accompanied me to the door. I noted the slight frown of disapproval on Edward Herepath's face and guessed that her willingness to serve others irritated him. He wanted to revere her, isolate her from the common herd, set her apart from the mundane rigours of everyday life, but that was plainly not her way. Without displaying any trace of humility, Cicely Ford was happy to be of use, and refused to leave everything to servants in a house where, I suspected, young as she was, she had been virtual mistress since the death of her guardian's wife some three years previously.

As the door to the parlour shut behind us, she laid a detaining hand on my arm, urging me closer to the fire burning on the hall hearth, and out of the draught whistling in from the buttery, which lifted the rushes on the floor. 'Warm yourself properly before you go out again,' she said. 'The streets today are bitter.'

Nothing loath, for every delay was an added moment in her company, I held out my hands to the blaze. After a minute or two, presuming on her natural friendliness and summoning up my courage, I asked gently, 'Would you indeed have married Robert Herepath, had he lived?' The blue eyes opened wide, once again full of tears, and I glimpsed such anguish in their swimming depths that it was like a descent into hell. I averted my own gaze swiftly, uncomfortably aware that I had trespassed on private ground; seen what I should not have seen. Before I could apologize, however, she whispered, 'Yes.' A log crackled, sending up a shower of sparks. 'Forgive me...' I was beginning, but she did not hear me, wrapped as she was in her overwhelming grief. Then, suddenly, she spoke, the words bursting forth in a torrent from her overcharged heart. 'Do you know what it is like to fail the one person you love more than life itself in his hour of need? To believe him capable of the heinous crime of murder? To allow yourself to feel a revulsion so great that you turn from him in horror? Do you?' She twisted her hands together so tightly that it seemed the delicate fingers must crack, but she was unconscious of the pain. 'No, of course you don't! And I pray to God in His mercy that you never will!' She drew in her breath sharply, rearing her head on its slender neck. 'I loved Robert Herepath from the moment I first became aware of him, when I was still a child, long before my father died and left me in Edward's care. I knew that whatever he appeared to be, however spoiled and reckless and ungrateful, he was not really like that underneath. He was a man who had never grown up. He needed gentleness and affection and understanding. Oh, Edward loved him as much as I did in his own way. But he was always busy and had too little time to spare for a younger brother left in his care.' She lifted sad eyes to mine. 'Please don't think I'm blaming Edward. He was not much more than twenty when Giles Herepath died and he found himself father and mother both to a boy of barely two.' A shy smile curled her lips. 'That was the year I was born, but my own father often spoke to me of the burden Edward had so willingly shouldered, and how much he admired him for it.'