The Brothers of Glastonbury (8 page)

Brother Hilarion shivered. ‘We won’t think of that, my child.’ Almost involuntarily, he crossed himself. ‘Let us pray that these signs of normality in the Gildersleeve household mean that they have some knowledge of his whereabouts.’

‘They don’t, Brother,’ I told him bluntly, ‘but I ask you to keep that information to yourself. Mark and Dame Joan have entrusted the task of finding Peter to me.’

‘To you?’ Brother Hilarion was naturally astonished. ‘But you are a stranger to them, by your own account thrown in their way by chance.’

‘It would take far too long to make all plain to you now. I have work to do. But I promise to visit you as soon as possible and tell you everything that has happened to me since I left your care. Can you be patient?’

He smiled ruefully. ‘Patience is no inconsiderable part of our calling – as you should know, for you were never much good at practising that virtue.’

I laughed, bade him farewell and continued on my way down the busy thoroughfare, across the bustling market place and so to Northload Street and the stables, where I could almost have sworn that Barnabas was pleased to see me.

*   *   *

I was equally warmly welcomed by the Pennards when, just under an hour later, I rode into the courtyard of the long, low, single-storey farmhouse, with its slate-tiled roof and ample-sized undercroft, to make known my errand and to beg a word with Abel Fairchild.

‘A bad business. A bad business,’ Anthony Pennard said, rubbing his forehead in perplexity with a workmanlike hand.

He was a smallish man with such gnarled and weather-beaten features that it was difficult to guess his age. But his hair, although liberally streaked with grey, retained much of its original brown colour, and his dark eyes had a direct, unclouded gaze, both of which suggested that it was the elements rather than time that had not dealt kindly with him. Moreover, Mistress Pennard was a sprightly woman with cornflower-blue eyes and dimpled cheeks, who I should not have reckoned to be much more than forty. Therefore, unless she was considerably younger than her husband, Anthony Pennard was still some way short of his fiftieth birthday.

‘What’s happened to poor Master Gildersleeve is a mystery, and that’s a fact,’ Mistress Pennard chimed in, her mouth puckered with anxiety. ‘And it occurred on our land, too! I was in Wells market earlier this morning and I fancied several people tried to avoid me. I saw one or two whispering behind their hands. But what am I thinking of? Won’t you sit down and have a stoup of ale, Master…?’

‘Stonecarver,’ I said, reverting to my original name before it seemed to have been changed for ever by my calling. I had agreed with Mark, before leaving, that there was no need to be too frank about my connection with the Gildersleeves, and to introduce myself as a friend (albeit a recent one) of the family. ‘My father pursued that trade,’ I added. ‘He was killed by a fall whilst working on the roof of the cathedral nave, here in Wells.’

‘You’re a local man, then?’ Mistress Pennard said, wrinkling her brow. ‘Wait … I seem to remember a Widow Stonecarver. Blanche, her name was. She had a son called … called—’

‘Roger,’ I smiled. ‘Yes, I’m he.’

After that she could not do enough for me, almost forcing me to sit at the table and drink with her and her husband before setting out to find Abel. She rejected the sallop she had been about to offer me, and sent Anthony to broach a new cask of ale. While he was gone, I learned that the house and pastures were episcopal property and that the original lease had been her father’s. When William Jephcott died, however, it had been granted to Anthony Pennard, a Priddy man whom Anne Jephcott had married when she was made pregnant by him at the age of sixteen.

‘Not the marriage that my parents would have chosen for me,’ she whispered confidentially, ‘but he’s proved a good man none the less, and very few people the wiser that Gilbert, my eldest, wasn’t conceived between clean sheets, as they say.’

I doubted this. Anyone who could confide such intimacies to a stranger, and all within ten minutes of making his acquaintance, was not the woman to keep a still tongue in her head about anything. I saw Anthony Pennard give her a swift, sideways glance as he returned with the cups of ale, and guessed that he was wondering what fresh indiscretions his wife had committed.

‘Been giving you the family history, has she?’ he asked in a resigned tone as he resumed his seat at the table.

‘I’m just being friendly, that’s all,’ Anne Pennard rebuked him.

I smiled and swallowed my ale almost in one gulp. I had had a hot ride from Glastonbury and was thirsty.

‘Do you have any thoughts yourselves on what might have happened to Master Gildersleeve?’ I asked them. ‘This boy, Abel Fairchild – is he given to odd fancies or making up stories?’

They shook their heads in unison.

‘He’s been helping Gilbert and Thomas tend our flocks these two years past,’ Anthony said, ‘and never a complaint about him that I’ve heard. You can question my lads though, if you like. You don’t have to take my word for it.’

‘A thoroughly sensible young boy,’ Anne Pennard confirmed. ‘Neither Gil nor Tom hesitate to leave all in his charge when they’re away to Priddy with their father.’

‘So you wouldn’t doubt that things happened just as he described them?’

‘Peter’s missing, isn’t he?’ Anthony Pennard demanded. ‘And his horse was left tethered in that stand of trees. Why should we think that the boy’s lying about what he saw?’

His logic was irrefutable. Even if Abel Fairchild was known to be the biggest liar unhung, it wouldn’t alter the fact that Peter Gildersleeve was missing, and had been since the previous Friday. Today was Wednesday. Nothing had been seen or heard of him for almost five days.

I repeated my earlier question. ‘What then do you think has become of your friend?’

Anthony Pennard was as quick as Mark had been to deny any friendship between the two families.

‘We do business together, that’s all. Peter and his brother have been good customers over the years, like their father before them. We go rarely to Glastonbury. Will you take some more ale?’

I refused, regretfully, and, pushing back my stool, rose to my feet. ‘Where shall I find Abel Fairchild at this time of day?’

Anthony Pennard also stood up. ‘He’ll most likely be on the lower slopes as it’s close on noon, looking for some shade amongst the trees and scrub. It’s too hot higher up in this weather. I’ll come with you at least a part of the way.’ He addressed his wife, ‘I need to have a word with Gilbert.’

Mistress Pennard made no demur, and the two of us set out across the steeply rising pastures to locate our quarries. Clumps of gorse and clusters of trees dotted these lower slopes of Mendip, and the undulations of the ground made heavy going, especially as I had to limit my stride to the shorter steps taken by my guide. Clinging veils of heat shrouded the hilltops and made us both sweat in the midday glare. Then, suddenly, as we crested a rise and entered the grateful shade of a circle of stunted oaks, Anthony Pennard gripped my arm and pointed downwards into the dip below us.

‘This is the place,’ he whispered. ‘There’s the shepherd’s hut. This is where Peter Gildersleeve disappeared.’

Chapter Six

I descended the slope at a run, much as Peter Gildersleeve must have done the preceding Friday, and on reaching level ground paused to look around me. Then I glanced up to find myself staring at a boy whom I judged to be some twelve or thirteen summers, dressed in hose and smock of brown homespun, carrying a shepherd’s crook. His narrow face, beneath its thatch of straggling, straw-coloured hair, was pinched and ashen, his mouth agape, eyes wide with fear. The whole of his thin body seemed to tremble as he stood on top of the ridge above me.

From behind me, as he scrambled awkwardly down the incline, came the reassuring voice of Anthony Pennard.

‘It’s all right, Abel, lad! This is Roger Stonecarver, a friend of Mark Gildersleeve. He’s come to talk to you and to have a look at the place where Master Peter vanished.’

The boy drew a long, shuddering breath and a little colour seeped back into his cheeks. He swallowed hard and his eyes lost their look of terror. After a few moments, when he had regained control of his legs, he came down to greet us, tugging at his forelock.

‘I’m s-sorry,’ he stuttered. ‘Just for a second I thought…’

Anthony clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We know what you thought, lad, and we understand. No need to apologize.’

‘It was just seeing a man standing in the same spot where … where—’

‘Well, now you’re satisfied that it’s not Master Gildersleeve, I’ll leave you to talk with Roger here.’ And Anthony gave his shepherd-boy another hearty clout on the upper arm. ‘You have my permission. Where’s Gilbert? Have you seen him lately?’

‘He’s over to the west pasture with the ewes. Master Tom’s higher up. Last time I set eyes on him, he was rescuing an old tup that keeps wandering away from the flock and was caught in some brambles.’

‘Ay, I know the one. A stubborn, wilful old bugger. But Tom’ll be a match for him. No, it’s Gil I want.’ Anthony Pennard turned to me. ‘We’ll talk later when you come back for your horse. You can tell me then if this lad’s been of any use to you.’

He clambered up the slope again with more haste than dignity, skirted the copse and disappeared from view as the land shelved away to the foot of the Mendips and the marshy plain which stretched towards Glastonbury and the glimmering horizon beyond. I smiled at Abel and suggested that we sit in the lee of the hut, but he insisted on climbing out of the dell to the higher ground, so that he could keep a better eye on his sheep. These were scattered over a little distance, placidly nibbling the grass. We found some shade, cast by an outcropping of rocks, and seated ourselves with our backs pressed against the sun-warmed stone.

‘Now,’ I said, once we were comfortably settled, ‘would you be good enough to tell me exactly what happened the other day, the last time you saw Peter Gildersleeve? To be honest, I have already heard the story from the lips of Dame Joan, but details may have got lost or added in the telling. I should prefer to hear it from you.’

He regarded me curiously, his shrewd little eyes puckered against the light. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I’m lodging with the family and hope, if I can, to aid them in discovering Peter’s whereabouts. By removing that burden from Mark’s shoulders, it leaves him free to attend to his business, otherwise he loses both time and money.’

The boy, satisfied with this explanation, looked slowly around to make sure that none of his charges had wandered out of sight, then recounted his version of events. But in fact this varied very little from the one I had had from my hostess.

‘I was standing on that upper ridge there, just above that fold in the ground—’

‘I know,’ I interrupted. ‘I rode the same way only yesterday. You can see directly down into the next dip where the shelter stands. You can also see the copse and the Pennards’ house.’

‘That’s right.’ He nodded eagerly. ‘But then they disappear from view. Well, as I say, I was on that upper ridge and I saw Master Gildersleeve walking down the lower slope from the trees. When he reached the bottom, by the hut, he glanced up and waved.’

‘Did he seem pleased to see you?’ I asked, interrupting for a second time.

Abel looked faintly surprised, as if he had not previously considered this point, and answered thoughtfully, ‘He didn’t smile, now you come to mention it. And … yes, I remember he was slow in raising his hand. Grudging, like, in his greeting. You may be right, Master Stonecarver. Perhaps he wasn’t pleased to see me. Does it matter?’

‘Call me Roger,’ I insisted, ignoring his question. ‘You make me feel old with such a formal mode of address. Go on – what happened next?’

‘I ran down into the dip, rounded up a couple of sheep who showed signs of straying, and up the other side.’

This, I reflected, must have taken more time than the few seconds attributed to Abel’s fleetness of foot by Dame Joan.

‘How long, would you say, was Peter Gildersleeve out of your sight?’

He pursed his mouth and stuck out his underlip, flicking at it with a grubby forefinger. ‘A minute, perhaps. No more.’

In my own mind, I doubled this up to two. But even so, not long enough for a man to hide unless it was inside the hut itself. Anywhere else and surely Abel must have caught a glimpse of Peter as he bolted for cover, for that particular fold of ground was innocent of any of the trees and scrub that dotted the rest of the surrounding landscape.

‘So! When the hut came into view again, Master Gildersleeve had vanished. What did you do?’

The boy regarded me as though I were a simpleton. ‘I searched for him, of course.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I meant to find out what he was doing, roaming around the gaffer’s land on his own. If he wanted to speak to Master Pennard, or Master Gilbert or Master Tom, he should’ve called at the house, or the sheds where we store the fleeces. And I knew Mistress wouldn’t have sent him off on a wild goose chase after them, for they were all three over to Priddy that day.’

‘So you looked in the hut, but there was no one there. Are you quite certain of that?’

Abel spoke in a tone of withering scorn. ‘Have you been inside it?’ He did not wait for my reply, but went on, ‘You can’t have, because if so, you’d know there’s nothing in there but a heap of old sacks.’

‘The hut has only a small window,’ I pointed out. ‘Its interior must be dark. Could Master Gildersleeve have been hiding behind the door as you opened it?’

Abel smiled triumphantly. ‘I thought of that. And he wasn’t.’

‘You looked?’

‘I looked.’

‘And did you go right inside?’

‘No need. When the door’s open, there’s enough light to see everything that there is to be seen.’

I sighed. ‘Very well! You’ve convinced me that your quarry was not in the hut. What did you do next?’

‘I walked all round the outside.’ Abel shivered suddenly. ‘Master Gildersleeve wasn’t there, either. He wasn’t anywhere in sight.’

‘And did you search further afield?’