She resumed her seat at the table, willing me to do the same. Against my better judgement, I complied. ‘You can sleep here tonight,’ she said, astonishing both Marjorie and myself, ‘by the kitchen fire. I’ll speak to Father about it when he comes home.’
I realized afterwards, looking back, that her brother’s disappearance must have occupied most of her waking thoughts and possibly many of her dreams as well. It had no doubt been the main topic of conversation between herself and all those close to her for the last five months. They had talked around it in circles until they had nothing new to say on the matter. Each one proffered the same jaded point of view. She needed a fresh mind, fresh thoughts, before she could finally accept that there was no solution to the puzzle; that her brother was gone and would probably never be seen alive again. Because I have to admit, from what I had already heard, that that was the most likely outcome. A wealthy young man, set upon and murdered for his money, his body disposed of in the nearest river, was that so unprecedented? It was one of the hazards of everyday life. And didn’t the Scriptures tell us that man born of woman had but a short time to live? Murder, rapine, famine, plague, they were all God’s instruments.
With a start, I realized that I was thinking as I had been taught to think, expected to think, by the monks who had been my teachers. It was partly to escape their abject acceptance of the inevitability of Divine Will that I had decided against taking my final vows.
‘Your father will never permit of his sleeping here,’ Marjorie protested. ‘The chapman should be gone before the Alderman returns.’
‘I’ve told you, I’ll speak to Father.’ Alison dismissed the housekeeper’s objections and turned to me. ‘Well? Will you stay? The price I paid for that ribbon is sufficient, I should have thought, to let you eat for at least a couple of days.’
‘That I paid,’ Marjorie muttered under her breath, but not so low that her words were inaudible. I expected her mistress to fly into another fit of passion, but Alison ignored her, raising her eyebrows once again at me.
‘If you’re certain that your father won’t mind, I should be grateful for the chance of a warm fire and decent food.‘ The first drops of rain had started to fall and I could hear their faint pattering on the leaves of the trees. The air was heavy and windless, but the tiniest of soughing noises among the branches indicated a rising breeze. It could be a cold wet night.
‘Leave Father to me.’ Alison spoke with authority. ‘Now, what point had we reached in the story?’ And without waiting for, or needing, a reply from either of us, she continued: ‘The circumstances were not what you think. Nor what Marjorie has led you to believe. My brother was not roaming the streets of London with such an amount of money in his pocket. We left Bristol on All Hallows’ Day, and two of our men, Ned Stoner and Rob Short, went with us. My maid Joan rode pillion behind Ned. We spent three nights on the road and my father hired four other men to go with us as far as Chippenham. When we neared London, my uncle sent two of his servants as far as Paddington village to accompany us into the city and guide us to our destinations.’ She paused for breath, and once more there came the distant rumble of thunder, but closer this time. The noise of the rain increased.
‘You were well protected, then,’ I said.
She nodded.‘ For most of the time. And even when there were only the five of us, we travelled with a party of merchants whom we had met at one of the inns where we stayed. My father advised us to do that, and we obeyed him.’
‘So?’ I prompted, when she seemed to have fallen into a reverie. ‘What happened when you finally reached London?’
‘What? Oh! It was raining hard and had been for the most of the day, so my uncle and aunt had sent their coach for me and my maid. But Clement’s mare, Bess, had cast a shoe and it was agreed, in order to save time — it was late afternoon by now and beginning to get dark, you see — that he should ride in the coach with us, and that Ned would return to Paddington the following morning to collect Bess from the smithy. We therefore went first to the Dowgate Ward to let my brother alight, before continuing to Farringdon. He got out at the corner of Thames Street and Crooked Lane.’
‘Alone? Why didn’t Ned or Rob remain with him?’
‘Rob was leading my horse and was to lodge at my uncle’s with Joan and me. Ned was to stop with Clement at the Baptist’s Head but my uncle’s two men seemed anxious for his company. They were full of stories of bands of armed men who roamed the city streets, preying particularly on women, and my brother urged Ned to do as they asked. He could rejoin him later, Clement said. Besides, the inn was only a little way down the lane, within sight of where we left him.’ Alison dipped a forefinger in the remains of her ale and drew a rough map on the table. ‘This is Thames Street,’ she said, ‘and this-’ she made another damp line at right-angles to it- ‘is Crooked Lane, running down to the wharves and the river. Here, at the corner where we dropped him, is another inn called the Crossed Hands, and the Baptist’s Head is a little further down on the opposite side. We could see the sign and the lanterns hung on the wall. It was only a few steps for him to go and we did not wait. My uncle’s men were anxious to be home before curfew and I think we were all looking forward to our beds. I leaned out of the coach to wave goodbye. Clement was standing, huddled inside his cloak, immediately beneath a torch fixed high up, near an upstairs window of the Crossed Hands inn. He waved back, then made an impatient gesture to speed us on our way. I drew the curtains of the coach and settled back into my seat for the remainder of the journey. I remember remarking to Joan how tired I was and that I should be glad to be safely indoors. It was a wild night and I recall how the torches guttered when my uncle and aunt came out to greet us. Ned returned at once to Crooked Lane and the Baptist’s Head.‘ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘But he never found Clement. He wasn’t there. Thomas Prynne said he’d never arrived.’
Chapter 4
Into the silence which followed her words came a second roll of thunder. I had not noticed the lightning flash which preceded it, so absorbed had I been by Alison Weaver’s story. In my mind’s eye I could envisage quite plainly the figure of her brother as she had last seen him, huddled in his cloak against the driving rain, illuminated by the flickering torchlight of the Crossed Hands inn, with so few steps between himself and safety. The Baptist’s Head was within sight, Thomas Prynne, his father’s old friend, waiting to welcome him, a posset of warm ale already brewing on the fire … But Clement Weaver had never arrived.
The noise of the thunder made us all jump. Marjorie, coming to her senses, realized that the rain was driving in through the open door and, with a cluck of annoyance, got up to shut it, stirring the pot of stew at the same time. ‘All this talk,’ she grumbled. ‘I’m forgetting my duties. A wonder the meat hasn’t stuck to the bottom and burned.’
Neither Alison nor I paid her much attention. ‘Was it truly necessary,’ I asked, ‘for Ned to go with you? Even without him, there would still have been three grown men protecting you and your maid.’
‘You forget,’ Alison replied patiently, ‘that it was a very dangerous time just then. The Earl of Warwick had brought King Henry out of the Tower and proclaimed him rightful King again. The sanctuaries were overflowing with King Edward’s followers, and there were many not even in sanctuary, but hiding in the city. And it was only a matter of weeks since the execution of the Earl of Worcester. My uncle told me he had never seen the Londoners in such a restless, feverish state of excitement. He said the number of crimes was rising daily.’