‘There are always spies in England — and always have been! Just as we have spies in France and every other country,’ said John scornfully.
‘I’m just repeating what I’ve heard,’ answered Ranulf mildly. ‘Perhaps Renaud de Seigneur plans to catch you pleasuring his wife, so that he can blackmail you into revealing the secrets of the realm!’ he added mischievously
‘He’ll be in for a great disappointment, then,’ grunted de Wolfe. ‘I’ve cuckolded better men than him.’
Thinking it time that he turned the talk away from himself, he delved a little into his companion’s life.
‘What about you, friend? You cannot be married if you live in that bachelor den over the stables.’
‘I was wedded years ago, but my wife died in childbed, as did the infant.’
‘Have you not remarried, then? You are still young, not yet thirty, I would guess.’
Ranulf shook his head. ‘I enjoy life as it is, John. I do not lack for female company when I desire it, but enjoy men’s pursuits, like gambling on dice, dog-fighting and the like. I also follow the tournaments in a modest way, though I can’t yet afford to equip myself sufficiently to enter the lists in any of the great tourneys.’
John, who had also dabbled in jousting in his earlier days, knew of the passion that some men had for tourneys. Fortunes could be made — and lost — on the tourney fields, as the horses and armour of the losers were forfeited to the winners, as well as heavy wagering on the results.
‘What about young William Aubrey?’ asked John. ‘Is he another merry bachelor?’
‘He is indeed, never having married. But he is twenty-one and has little prospect of inheritance, as he is the fifth son of a manor-lord in Somerset.’ He grinned as he thought of William’s cheerful nature. ‘He is another keen one for the girls, but he has youth on his side. Also, he shares my fondness for a wager, though ratting is his game.’
‘You’ll both have to be on your best behaviour when the old queen arrives,’ observed de Wolfe. ‘All the organisation of travel is your responsibility, I gather.’
Ranulf became serious at the prospect. ‘Yes, though under the direction of William the Marshal himself, when he arrives. We have half a dozen under-marshals here and a legion of ostlers, grooms, farriers and wheelwrights to keep the cavalcade on the road, once we leave Westminster.’
They crossed the stream and entered the gate into Old Palace Yard. Just before they parted, John told him about Simon Basset, as the under-marshal was almost as involved as himself in the matter of the stolen treasure.
‘It’s not common knowledge yet, but Canon Simon seems to have disappeared,’ he said. ‘I wanted to question him about access to the chests in the Tower, but he appears to have vanished off the face of the earth. No one in his household or in the Exchequer has any news of him.’
Ranulf’s expression showed his concern. ‘But along with the Constable, he’s the most likely suspect, given that he has at least half the keys necessary,’ he said. ‘Do you think he’s fled the country with a sack full of gold?’
De Wolfe shrugged. ‘It seems a little unlikely that a respectable canon would give up his life in England for nine hundred pounds, though that’s a lot of money. And he’s left behind a valuable house and possessions, as well as a position of influence and prestige.’
‘Maybe he’s just having a few days and nights with a secret mistress,’ suggested Ranulf. They both laughed at the thought of the portly canon indulging in some passionate affair, but as John said farewell and walked off to meet Gwyn, he wondered whether that was a possible explanation.
CHAPTER NINE
In an upstairs room of a house in Stinking Lane, just inside the city wall near Aldersgate, a man lay naked on a feather-filled mattress. He was not a pretty sight to begin with, having an over-rounded belly and pale, pasty limbs, but the fact that he was groaning and dry-retching into an earthenware basin, made him even less attractive to the two women who stood watching him from the doorway.
‘He’s been like this for the past hour,’ reported Lucy, a pretty but over-painted girl of about eighteen years, with brightly dyed red hair reaching down her back. She pressed a long green brocade pelisse tightly about her body, her arms folded across her full bosom.
‘Has he not done what he paid for?’ demanded the older woman, a raddled former beauty, whose faded blonde hair was tucked beneath a white cover-chief.
Lucy shook her head, her eyes still on the man moaning on the pallet. ‘He got as far as taking off his garments, mistress, but then suddenly fell ill.’ She sounded as if it was a personal slight on her professional abilities that her client was unable to perform his duty.
‘He can’t stay here like this!’ snapped Margery of Edmonton, who ruled the bawdyhouse with a rod of iron. ‘If he dies on us, we’ll have the sheriff’s men here, frightening off other patrons, as well as expecting free favours for themselves.’
The more sympathetic Lucy, who over many visits had developed a fondness for her normally amiable customer, leaned over the sufferer and tried to converse with him between bouts of retching.
‘Was it something you ate, sir? Have you taken bad meat very lately?’
His eyes rolled upward and managed to focus on the face above him. ‘I supped at a good inn with …’ then his words tailed off as he tried to vomit again, though his stomach had nothing left.
His face took on a ghastly pallor and sweat appeared on his brow as a rigor shook his body. ‘An apothecary — get me an apothecary!’ he managed to gasp before another bout of retching started.
Lucy looked at her mistress, and then at two other girls, whose curiosity had brought them to peer into the room from the open doorway. ‘Can we send for Master Justin? He usually attends us girls when we have troubles,’ she asked hopefully.
The madam of the house shook her head firmly. ‘I’ll not have people parading through the place. If our gentlemen wish to be indisposed, they must do it elsewhere.’
‘What are you going to do, then?’ asked one of the girls at the door, a strange-looking strumpet with a patently false blonde wig and red dabs of rouge on her cheeks.
‘Go and fetch Benedict and Luke. Tell one of them to call a chair in the street. We’ll get him taken away.’
Lucy looked unhappy at this, but knew it was unwise and unprofitable to try to argue with the madam. ‘Where can he be taken?’ she asked.
‘He’s a cleric, so let him go to St Bartholomew’s. They have the best hospital in London, they can surely look after one of their own.’
She waved a hand peremptorily at the other girl in the passage.
‘Come and help Lucy get some clothes on the fellow! At least he can be carried decently through the streets. And then call one of the slatterns to clear up this mess.’ She pointed at the bilious fluid on the floor alongside the mattress.
With much groaning and piteous wailing from the priest, the two whores managed to force the sufferer’s limbs and body back into his hose, undershirt and long cassock. He seemed beyond any sensible speech now, his slack mouth dribbling saliva. The only words Lucy could distinguish as they wrestled his arms into his robe were ‘Green! Green and yellow — everything is yellow.’
Now two hulking men arrived on the scene, their usual tasks being to throw out any drunken or over-perverted customers. They lifted the priest bodily from the pallet and with an ease born of long practice, carried him down the stairs to the narrow lane. It was early evening and the streets around Aldersgate were relatively quiet. One of the thugs from the brothel had sent for a litter, a crude device with a wooden chair fixed to two poles, which a pair of porters manhandled for a small fee. Margery of Edmonton had grudgingly paid the two pence demanded, taking them from the purse attached to the canon’s belt, having again confirmed from Lucy that he had paid her his fee before falling ill.