Mistress Bush, who let me in, was busy in the kitchen, making soup – chicken and lentil if my nose was any judge – and anxious to return to it before it stuck to the bottom of the pot.
‘What do you want?’ she asked, none too pleased at being disturbed.
‘A word with Sir Anselm,’ I said.
She pursed her mouth and eyed me up and down in that infuriating, considering way women have when the power of decision rests in their hands.
‘Very well,’ she conceded at last. ‘As long as it is just a word. I won’t have you tiring him out. He’s still very weak. And don’t bully him.’
‘Who? Me?’ I was the picture of injured innocence.
She sniffed. ‘I’ve had experience of your hectoring ways.’
‘You’re thinking of somebody else,’ I assured her, obtaining and gallantly kissing one of her hands. I inhaled the mouthwatering aroma of chicken soup. ‘And your eel pies are sheer ambrosia, too,’ I added, with apparent irrelevance.
She gave another sniff and snatched her hand away.
‘That’s quite enough of that, Master Chapman. I know your sort. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m just sorry for your poor wife, that’s all.’
‘I make her the happiest woman in Bristol,’ I protested.
‘Between the sheets, no doubt. But where does that lead? Only to more children. You said you have three, I believe. Any girls?’
‘Just the one.’
‘Then I’m sorry for you.’ Dame Winifred sighed. ‘Girls are the very devil to bring up. At least, modern girls are. It wasn’t so in my day, of course. We were much better behaved.’
‘As every generation of mothers has no doubt said from time immemorial,’ I laughed, and headed for the staircase.
‘What do you want?’ Sir Anselm demanded as I entered his bedchamber.
I ignored the peremptory tone and sat down, uninvited, on the edge of his bed. I didn’t beat around the bush.
‘Who did this to you and the miller?’ I asked. ‘And don’t tell me you don’t know. Or can’t guess.’
‘Well, I don’t know. I didn’t see his face. Go away!’
I put a hand over one of his which was lying, hot and dry as an autumn leaf, on the patchwork coverlet.
‘Father,’ I urged, ‘this man, whoever he may be, is dangerous. He’s most probably the murderer of Eris Lilywhite. If you know anything – anything at all – you must tell me. Or tell someone. Was it Tom Rawbone who attacked you?’
‘How many more times do I have to repeat myself?’ His voice rose peevishly. ‘I know nothing. I saw nothing. Now, will you please go away? Preferably,’ he added waspishly, ‘back where you came from.’ He turned his face to the wall. ‘I’ve no more to say.’
His protests carried no weight with me. Indeed, their very repetition made me more suspicious.
‘Father, you’re being extremely foolish,’ I chided him. ‘I suspected, when I talked to you yesterday, that there was something you were concealing; some knowledge gleaned, most probably, from things told, or hinted at, in the confessional. Was this beating a warning to you to keep your mouth shut?’
‘And if it were, I’d be a fool to ignore it, wouldn’t I?’ was the sharp retort. His head jerked round again to look at me face to face.
‘So you do know something,’ I said, seizing on his question as an admission of the truth.
He removed his hand from under mine. ‘I didn’t say that-’
‘In so many words,’ I interrupted.
‘-but if you wish to interpret it in that way,’ he continued as though I hadn’t spoken, ‘I can’t prevent you. But you’re forgetting Lambert Miller. Does such an argument apply to him?’
‘No, not as far as I know. But I think there might have been a different motive there.’
‘Might have been?’ He eyed me shrewdly. ‘I understood from Dame Winifred that the miller and Tom Rawbone had quarrelled over Rosamund. Lambert had attacked and beaten Tom severely.’
I nodded. ‘True! I was present when it happened. And Tom has fled the village. But suppose that someone wanted to throw blame on to Tom, hoping that amid the general condemnation, he’d panic and flee, then breaking into the mill and assaulting Lambert would be the way to do it. The attack on you would be for a different reason; a warning, as I’ve said already. But no one would stop to consider that. The thinking would be that if Tom assaulted the miller, then he also assaulted the priest. The “why” of it wouldn’t be considered. Most people, in my experience, can reason from one to two, but very few continue reasoning from two to three. Don’t you agree?’
Sir Anselm regarded me sullenly.
‘You’re making my head ache,’ he complained, ‘with all your arguments. Go away. Please.’
I sighed and got to my feet. ‘You’re a stubborn old man,’ I told him. ‘And a foolish one.’
‘Chapman!’ Mistress Bush bustled into the room, carrying a tray on which reposed a bowl of chicken and lentil broth and a heel of bread, torn from a newly baked loaf. ‘I warned you not to bully my patient. Do as Father Anselm asks, and leave.’
I shrugged. I could see that I was getting nowhere, and now that his temporary housekeeper and nurse had arrived to join forces with the priest, I might as well accept defeat gracefully and go. I wished Sir Anselm a speedy recovery and made for the door, followed by Hercules. (Having shared my eel pie, the dog was still fairly somnolent and had been lying quietly at my feet, patiently waiting for me to make a move.)
I was about to lift the latch when, to my surprise, Sir Anselm called me back. He fumbled under his pillow and produced a bunch of keys, which he handed to me.
‘I’m not absolutely sure that I locked the aumbry yesterday evening before I came to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night, worrying about it, and intended going down to the church to make certain. But then, I must have dozed again. And, of course, the next thing I knew …’ He broke off, trembling, but controlled it with an effort. ‘Since when,’ he continued gamely, determined not to give in to his weakness, ‘I’ve forgotten all about it. When you leave here, would you step into the church and see whether or not the cupboard is fastened? If it isn’t, would you do it for me? It’s the small silver key on the end. You can leave it and the others on the kitchen table. Dame Winifred will return them to me later.’
I readily agreed, only too glad to be of service, and took the keys from him while Mistress Bush settled the tray on his lap. I wished her the time of day and left, clattering downstairs, Hercules racing ahead of me, delighted to be on his feet at last.
He was disgusted, however, when, instead of heading for the open country on the opposite side of the stream, I turned to my right and entered the church. He demonstrated his disapproval in the usual way, by trying to nip my ankles, but, fortunately, my boots were of tough and seasoned leather, doing more damage to his teeth than he could do to my legs. All the same, it was a habit of which I had to cure him, and soon.
I made my obeisance before the High Altar and then to the Virgin. But it was to the Christ of the Trades that my eyes were inevitably drawn; to that contorted, tortured figure that had proved the inspiration for the low-born and oppressed, giving them the courage to rebel against the injustice of the infamous Statute of Labourers that had been fashioned in order to keep them in subjection and deprive them of their rights. The peasants hadn’t won, of course. How could they ever have expected to, when all the forces of law and order were ranged against them? They had been betrayed in the end – inevitably I felt – by a king who had posed as their friend until the trap was sprung and they were crushed between its iron jaws.
‘And betrayed by You, too,’ I whispered, staring up at the writhing Christ, His bleeding head encircled by His carpenter’s tools. ‘Sometimes, I wonder whose side You’re really on. Are you truly the defender of the poor and the subjugated? Or, as Lord of Creation, are you the friend of the High and the Mighty? Is it like calling to like?’
He didn’t reply. He knew, as I knew, that I should have to work out the answers to those questions for myself. He also knew that I was trouble, that I always had been, but I felt, nevertheless, a sudden rush of warmth along my veins. He was there somewhere in that cold, dank church. It was reassuring.