The Tintern Treasure (23 page)

‘Nothing,' I answered briefly and walked away, his curiosity unsatisfied, his eager questions pursuing me along Bell Lane until I reached the turning to Small Street.

So the stranger had not sailed with the ship to Brittany. My belated notion that he might simply have delivered a message to the ship's captain and then returned ashore would seem to be the correct one. I felt certain that this was the man I had witnessed talking to Sir Lionel in the manor courtyard at Keynsham, but whether or not he was Walter Gurney I was still unable to determine.

It was almost dinnertime and my belly was, as usual, rumbling with hunger, but before going home I walked to the Frome Gate. Fortunately, it was quiet at that time of the morning and I was able to engage the gatekeeper in conversation without interruption or distraction.

‘Have you been on duty since dawn?'

The man, a new fellow whom I did not remember having seen before, gave me a surly nod, then burst out with: ‘And damn cold it was, I can tell you!'

‘I'm sure it was,' I murmured sympathetically. ‘The City Fathers should provide you gatekeepers with extra clothing during the winter months. With no added cost to your good selves, of course.'

‘Now you're talking sense. Haven't I always said the same?' His manner thawed a little as he recognized a well-wisher.

I risked forfeiting his good opinion and asked another question. ‘I suppose you didn't happen to notice a man riding a blood horse, black with four white stockings, pass through the gate very early on?'

‘Nah! No one on a horse like that has passed this way early or late. And don't,' he went on, anticipating me, ‘ask if I'm sure, 'cos I'd 'ave remembered.'

So, the stranger had not passed out of the Frome Gate. The Redcliffe Gate then? Returning to Keynsham? It seemed most probable, but it had been as well to check. I thanked the gatekeeper and was turning back towards Small Street when, reluctant to let me go so easily, the man remarked, ‘Heard the news about the robbery?'

‘You mean at Lawyer Heathersett's?' I answered.

The gatekeeper looked surprised. ‘The lawyer's been robbed as well? My, my! What is this city coming to? No, I meant the wine merchant's. Master Callowhill's house was broken into last night.'

This time I did say, ‘Are you sure?' before he could stop me.

‘Of course I'm sure,' he said – or words to that effect. Actually the phrase was a richer and riper one which I committed to memory for future use at the Green Lattis. (It should earn me a few admiring glances.)

I thanked him a second time and made off before he could detain me further.

Adela was in the kitchen where, I must admit, a woman is generally to be found, chopping herbs to sprinkle over the dried fish which was our Friday fare. ‘John Carpenter hasn't been yet,' she said accusingly, pointing with her knife to the piece of sacking she had nailed over the gaping hole in the shutters.

‘He'll be here,' I promised, ‘but he has other folk to attend to first.' And sitting down on a nearby stool I told her of the other robberies and attempted robbery that I had learned about that morning.

At first, my wife was inclined to be indignant that our need seemed to be of less consequence to the carpenter than that of other people, but gradually common sense prevailed. She knew as well as I did that we were indeed of less consequence than men of fortune and civic standing. Besides which, intelligent woman that she was, another thought had begun to form; a thought which had already occurred to me.

‘Roger . . .' she said slowly, abandoning her chopping and sitting down on a stool on the opposite side of the table. ‘Roger, do you think these robberies and failed robberies aren't just . . . aren't really . . . well, aren't proper robberies at all? If you see what I mean. Has it occurred to you that you and Master Foliot and Lawyer Heathersett and Master Callowhill are all people who were at Tintern Abbey when poor Peter Noakes was drowned?'

I nodded. ‘That idea has been nagging at me ever since the gatekeeper told me about Master Callowhill just now. I'm trying to make sense of it. Give me a moment or two while I mull things over.'

I cast my mind back to that stormy night at the abbey and tried to picture again what had happened. I recalled Peter Noakes rushing past us and my conviction that he was holding something in his left hand as well as the bag of tools in his right. Later, however, when his body was found and nothing was discovered on his person it seemed that I had been mistaken. I closed my eyes in an attempt to recall the exact sequence of events.

Peter Noakes had dashed out into the night, pursued by Brother Mark and his posse of fellow monks, only to elude them in the infirmary by escaping along the latrine drain to the cesspit and climbing over the wall. But why had he risked being trapped inside the infirmary? Our conclusion, apparently accepted by everyone at the time, was that he had gone back to collect the rest of his gear which he had left there. But had that really been the reason? Wasn't there another, far more probable explanation which I, like the double-dyed fool that I undoubtedly was, had carelessly overlooked, but which someone of greater wit and intelligence had instantly thought of? Peter Noakes had indeed found whatever it was that he had been seeking and concealed it in the baggage of one of the rest of us, hoping to retrieve it later. And in that same moment of realization, I understood why Oliver Tockney had been set upon and murdered. And why his pedlar's pack had been stolen.

But last night's events proved that Oliver could not have been carrying the ‘treasure'. I leapt to my feet like a madman.

‘Where's my pack?' I yelled.

‘Where it always is when you're not using it,' my wife answered patiently. ‘In the kitchen corner next to the water barrel.' Once more, she pointed with her knife.

I grabbed the pack and tore it open, spilling its contents over the floor.

‘What, in the Virgin's name . . .?' Adela began, but I waved her to silence.

Piece by piece I picked up the various items, subjecting each to close scrutiny before restoring it to the pack. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual collection of needles and thread, bobbins, laces, ribbons, some fancy buttons, a pair of buckles, belt tags, a ‘silver' ring and pendant and the two pairs of Spanish gloves that I had purchased in Gloucester. I scrabbled around on the floor, looking for something – anything – that I might have missed, but in the end was forced to the conclusion that everything was accounted for. Supposing my theory to be the correct one, then Peter Noakes had not chosen me to be his carrier.

I rose stiffly to my feet and heard one of my knees crack.

Adela heard it, too, and grimaced but made no comment. She had, by this time, divined the reasons behind my frenzy and said, ‘You think Peter Noakes did find something and hid it in someone's baggage.' It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact. As I have already remarked, she was a very intelligent woman and clever enough, most of the time, to conceal the fact in my presence. I gave her a quick hug and a suggestive kiss. She went on calmly chopping herbs.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I feel sure now that that's what happened. I should have thought of it long ago. I must be getting old.'

Adela didn't contradict me. She knew I was thirty-one. Besides, she was busy pursuing her own line of thought.

‘But Roger,' she objected after a moment or two, ‘if you are right, why would the houses of all of you – Goldsmith Foliot, Lawyer Heathersett, Master Callowhill as well as yourself – be broken into? Apart from yourselves, who else's baggage was there that could have been used as a temporary hiding place by young Noakes?'

‘Only Oliver Tockney's. And he's dead.' Adela's great dark eyes were suddenly fixed on me with a look of painful intensity. I gave her another kiss and tried to reassure her. ‘Oliver was an easy target; a stranger, a “foreigner” from the north whose death no one would care about. The rest of us are different; men of standing. The murder of anyone of us would provoke immediate investigation.'

This time she returned my kiss and laughed, albeit a little shakily. ‘You're a man of standing?' she teased.

‘Falsely, yes, because my reputation belies the truth. Thanks to the fact that I was at King Richard's coronation and feast, and thanks to that unholy trio, Margaret, Bess Simnel and Maria Watkins, I'm mistakenly believed to be a royal agent whose murder would bring instant retribution in its wake. However,' I went on, watching as she sprinkled the herbs over the fish and started to fry them in the skillet, ‘that doesn't answer your question as to why all remaining four of us have been victims of last night's successful or attempted robberies.'

Adela, leaving the fish to fry gently in the pan, began to put out bowls and knives and beakers. ‘So what is the solution?' she asked, although I felt sure she had already worked out the answer for herself.

‘If you want to direct attention away from yourself, you arrange with your hired bravos to make it seem that you are also one of the victims.'

Adela sat down on a stool again, thinking deeply. ‘What you're saying is that someone knew about the Tintern treasure, knew what it was that Peter Noakes must have found, guessed where he had hidden it and is now trying to recover it. Surely, if that theory is correct, the finger of suspicion can only point in one direction?'

‘To Gilbert Foliot? Yes. But if so, what part does Sir Lionel Despenser play in the story?'

‘You think he has one?'

‘I should say almost certainly. It has to be information traded between him and the goldsmith that sent young Noakes haring off to Wales.' And I told her what Ursula Foliot had said to me only that morning. ‘I don't believe, however, that either man knew what it was they were looking for. In that respect, they are as much in the dark as the rest of us.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘Because Master Foliot only has a suspicion that there might have been something else in the abbey hiding place apart from the original papers, and that must be on account of something Sir Lionel told him. And . . .'

‘Yes?' my wife encouraged me as I faltered.

‘We-ell, it seems probable – more than probable – to me that such information came into his possession after he had made the acquaintance of Walter Gurney. Consider the facts for a moment. To begin with, two people have now said that there is some historical link between the names of Despenser and Gurney, one of them, according to Mistress Shoesmith, being none other than Walter Gurney himself. Secondly, Jane Spicer testified to the fact that when Walter heard of Sir Lionel being in want of a groom he was off at once to offer himself for the position. She, of course, attributed it to his anxiety to get away from her and possibly being lumbered eventually with Juliette's child.'

‘But you don't believe that was the reason?'

‘Oh, it may have been part of the reason, but not all of it. Walter knew there was a tie of some sort between his and the Despenser family.'

‘To do with the Tintern treasure?'

‘If there is indeed any treasure. Don't let's forget that I am guessing and nothing more. But if there is, then no, I wouldn't think Walter knew of it.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because in that case, human nature being what it is, I would hazard that someone in the Gurney family would have gone after it long ago. The account books and the pages of the old monk's diary belonged to the early years of the last century. 1326 was the date, if I remember rightly.'

‘Does that date mean anything to you?' The fish was now fried and Adela began dishing it out on to thick trenchers of stale bread. She went to the kitchen door and shouted for the children.

I thought back to history lessons with Brother Hilarion, but although I cudgelled my brains, no memory stirred.

Elizabeth, Nicholas and especially Adam were all still full of the previous night's attempted robbery, Adam particularly so as he seemed to think that he had played a major part in scaring off the intruder. Which, of course, he had, although not in quite the heroic way that he regarded it.

‘I'm a man now,' he announced with simple pride. ‘I have a knife. If that man tries to rob our house again, I shall stick it into him. Straight through his belly button.'

Everyone laughed but me. I was too busy trying to work out why his words bothered me; what chord they had struck in my mind. It seemed to me afterwards that I had very nearly had the answer when a furious knocking on the street door made me jump almost out of my skin and drove all such thoughts from my head. Two minutes later, Elizabeth, who had gone to the door to admit the caller, returned to the kitchen with Richard Manifold in tow.

I groaned. He took no notice.

‘Roger,' he said, at his most officious, ‘you must accompany me to the bridewell at once.'

‘Well, I won't,' I replied mutinously. ‘I'm eating my dinner.'

‘Now,' was the uncompromising answer. ‘Orders of the sheriff.'

I threw down my knife. ‘Why?' I demanded pettishly.

‘An old beggar has been murdered in Pit Hay Lane. We've arrested a man, another old beggar, who was caught red-handed bending over the body.'

‘So?'

‘So this second beggar insists on speaking to you. Absolutely insists on it. And you haven't forgotten what I was telling you the other day; the rumour that an agent of the king might be here in disguise?' I gave a start. I had forgotten it. ‘The sheriff thinks I'm being overzealous. He says this man couldn't possibly be a royal officer. But I thought it would be as well to be certain.'

H
e was sitting – perched would perhaps be a better word – on a narrow stone ledge beneath a tiny barred window through which the pallid November daylight struggled to make any impression. A rush light provided almost no illumination, and I had to wait for my eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom before viewing the huddled figure with any clarity.