‘What will you take?’ She was pouring ale for another customer as she spoke. ‘I’ve choice in plenty today, being as how it’s market day.’
‘Aye, I noticed.’ He looked at the platters of neighbouring customers; carp in some sort of sauce, eels, mutton stew, hare, what appeared to be a sort of game pie … The pie seemed to be going down particularly well. ‘A portion of your pie, please.’
She loaded a platter, deftly cutting a hunk of bread and balancing it on top of the pie crust, then put the meal down in front of him with a thump. ‘Eat up,’ she said, eyeing his body, ‘a man with a fine, big frame like yours needs a good helping of food regular.’ She put her head on one side, giving him a considering glance. ‘Not to mention his other appetites.’
Was it his imagination, or did she raise an enquiring eyebrow?
Well, even if she had done, and even if he’d felt like a quick roll with her, there wasn’t time. She was still looking at him; whatever sort of toll her former profession had demanded, it hadn’t affected her too adversely. Her skin was still good, and she had most of her teeth. And she really did have beautiful breasts …
It was, Josse reflected as, with an almost imperceptible shake of his head, he turned his attention to the delicious pie, just as well he was here on important business.
When Anne had gone — with a swirl of her hips which seemed to say, you don’t know what you’re missing! — Josse glanced round to see if any of the men he had met the other day were about. He thought he saw Matthew, and, finishing his food, went over to speak to him.
It was indeed Matthew. ‘Morning, stranger,’ he greeted Josse. ‘Come to make your purchases at market? Or are you come to sell your birds?’ He smiled as he spoke; Josse was not dressed as a chicken farmer.
‘Come to search for someone,’ Josse said. What harm could it do to ask one or two people if they’d seen Milon? Even if word got back to him that Josse was on his trail, it could hardly come as a surprise. If, that was, Josse was right about his guilt.
And Josse entertained no doubts about that.
‘Oh, aye?’ Matthew said.
‘A young man, hardly more than a lad, really. Slim, fashionably dressed, yellow hair cut in a fringe, with a curl on his forehead?’
Matthew muttered something on the lines of, ‘Sounds like a right pretty boy.’ Then, his brow creased in concentration, he said, ‘That’s familiar, that is. Reckon I did see a lad looking like that, but it was a while ago.’
‘Did you?’
‘Aah. I did that. I remember, I watched him ride by — it were over Castle Hill way, going up towards the ridge there.’
The Castle Hill ridge, Josse thought. That lies between Tonbridge and Hawkenlye. If Matthew’s memory was serving him truly, then this was news indeed.
‘Of course, I’ve only given you a fairly vague description,’ he said, trying to sound casual. ‘There are probably dozens of young men that answer it. People from London, visiting the castle, merchants on the road, passing through.’
‘This lad I’m thinking of weren’t no merchant, nor no guest up at the castle,’ Matthew said decisively.
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because he weren’t anywhere near the castle, nor the market neither.’ Matthew sighed, as if to say, isn’t it obvious? ‘Like I said, he were up there towards the ridge. Well, he was the first time I saw him. Second time, he were skulking around the back of the baker’s house. Hungry, I reckoned he was.’
‘You saw him twice.’
‘Aye.’ Matthew swirled the last half inch of ale around in the bottom of his mug. ‘Thirsty work, this remembering,’ he observed.
Josse caught the tap boy’s eye. When Matthew had taken the top off the refill, he said, ‘Turns out quite a few folk noticed him. Your pretty lad. We all had a good laugh.’ He gave a reminiscent chuckle.
Josse couldn’t for the life of him guess what they had found so funny. ‘At what?’
‘Them shoes!’ Matthew laughed again. ‘He’d have had to thread those daft toes through the stirrups like a good-wife threading her needle!’
Trying to keep the excitement out of his voice, Josse said, ‘How long ago was all this?’
The frown returned. ‘Ah. Now that’d be asking. Weren’t last market day, nor the one afore it. Or were it?’ Josse waited. ‘It were a fortnight ago,’ Matthew announced decisively. ‘Give or take.’
‘Give or take how much?’
‘Ah. Hmm. Day or so?’
There seemed little point in trying to pin him down any more precisely. In any case, Josse thought, I have the information I need. Milon d’Arcy was in the vicinity at the time of Gunnora’s death.
‘I suppose you’d recognise the fellow if you saw him again?’ Josse asked casually. It might be important to have a witness to Milon’s presence in Tonbridge.
‘That’d depend,’ Matthew said.
‘On what?’
Wearing a self-righteous expression suggesting that he didn’t want to be accused of handling the truth carelessly, he said, ‘Well, it was more the hairstyle I remarked on, like, than the face. And the shoes, like I said. And the tunic, come to that. Fair bum-freezer, were that tunic.’ He grinned. ‘See, if the young laddie came back in the same tackle, I’d know him again. But, there again, if he wore a hood and an old cloak, reckon he could stand me my ale all night and I wouldn’t recognise him. See what I’m getting at?’ he finished earnestly, as if desperate to prove his integrity. ‘I mean, ain’t easy, with strangers.’
‘No, indeed.’ Matthew had a point, Josse had to concede. ‘Well, thank you for your time, Matthew.’ Discreetly he laid a couple of coins on the table. ‘In case your thirst isn’t quite assuaged,’ he remarked.
‘Aye, aye, always a chance of that.’ A grubby hand shot out like a rat from a midden and the coins disappeared. ‘Thankee kindly, sir.’
Assured that he had done as much as he could to ensure Matthew’s future co-operation, should it prove necessary, Josse settled his bill and left.
* * *
He returned to the market, pushing his way around the stalls for a while, but could see nobody who looked remotely like Milon, even disguised in a hood and cloak. Giving it up, and glad to turn his back on the heaving, shoving crowds, he headed back for Hawkenlye.
He paused at the top of the ridge. The day was hot, with the sun shining strongly from a clear blue sky, and there had been little shade on the long trudge up from the vale. Letting his horse find his own way to a cool patch of grass beneath an oak tree, Josse relaxed in the saddle and sat looking back the way he had come.
From the high ground, the contours of the land showed up clearly. Visibility was good that afternoon, and, far away to the north, Josse could make out the line of the downs. His eye followed the roughly west to east course of the River Medway, down in the bottom of the valley, and he focused for a few moments on the great castle and the bridge over which it loomed. The township of Tonbridge, for all that it had seemed crowded and busy when he was down in it, appeared, from up here, small and insignificant, its whole existence brought about merely because it was the place where the river was crossed by the main road.
All around the town, in a clearly defined area within the encircling woodland, were the agricultural demesnes; now, at the height of summer, the rich alluvial land was heavy with ripening crops of corn, fruit and hops.
No wonder, Josse thought, pulling his horse’s head up and turning him back on to the track, the market was so well attended.
He still had time to kill. The track to Hawkenlye looped around a great bulge of the Wealden Forest. Making up his mind suddenly, he found a spot where the undergrowth was thin — a badger run, perhaps, or a deer path — and took a detour in beneath the trees.
Even on a bright July afternoon, the place was cool and dark. Josse could readily appreciate how it had come by its sinister reputation; riding through the steadily thickening trees and the rampant undergrowth as he went deeper in, he had to fight the urge to keep looking over his shoulder.