Someone I couldn’t see, but who I presumed was the other captain, was saying, ‘It’s your turn, Roger. Come along! You know what you have to do. Line up three of your “morrells” in a straight line, and those three will lead you to Eris. Get on with it, now! You’ve asked for my help, so do as I tell you. And when you’ve discovered the answer, you can go home to Adela. You might even be there by the Feast of Saint Patrick. Come along, Roger! Come along …’
Seventeen
I awoke next morning with a headache, and possessed of the feeling that I had only just dropped off to sleep.
At some time during the night, Hercules had left the shelter of my pallet and was now lying beside the hearth, on which a recently laid, and newly lit, fire was burning. Someone had been busy while I slept. That someone was now shaking my naked shoulder.
‘Wake up, chapman!’ Theresa’s voice sounded close to my ear. ‘What’s the matter with you and Maud this morning? You’re both as dozy as if you’d been up all night.’ She gave a sudden guffaw. ‘Not an illicit assignation, I trust!’
‘Don’t be vulgar, Mother-in-law!’ Maud begged curtly from behind the linen curtain.
‘God save you, girl, I didn’t mean it!’ Theresa gave another hearty laugh. ‘Don’t you know a joke when you hear one? What’s up with you? Didn’t you sleep well?’ She turned back to me. ‘I’ll give you ten minutes, Master Chapman, to make yourself decent enough for the company of a couple of respectable women. After that, you must take your chance. And so must we!’ She vanished behind the curtain, chuckling suggestively and leaving me to reflect how often it was, in my experience, that older women had a coarser sense of humour than their juniors.
I heaved myself off the pallet, struggled into shirt and breeches, tussled with recalcitrant laces whose points refused to thread through their corresponding eyes with any degree of accuracy, tugged on my boots and made for the yard.
While I doused my head under the pump, the dogs and geese started their usual cacophony, forcibly putting me in mind of the previous night. Before going back into the cottage, therefore, I checked on the animals to make certain that my adventure had not just been another, earlier part of my dream. But the bones, now picked clean, were still there on the ground beside the dogs, and the geese, pausing in their cackling, pecked at the few remaining grains scattered across the earth inside their pen.
Indoors, breakfast was almost ready, the oatmeal bubbling in a pot of water suspended over the fire, while the dried, salted herrings sizzled in a skillet placed among the embers. I groaned inwardly. I longed for a collop of pork or bacon such as we had had on an earlier morning. Breakfast in the Lilywhite household was fast becoming monotonous.
I donned my jerkin and pulled a stool up to the table. Maud placed a bowl of porridge in front of me just as I sneezed violently. I wiped my nose on the back of my hand.
‘You’re rheumy this morning,’ Theresa remarked. ‘Here, drink this. It’ll warm you.’ And she passed me half a beaker of ale to which she had added hot water and a spoonful of cinnamon.
I thanked her politely, although I would rather have had a drink made up entirely of ale. Then I sneezed again.
‘You got thoroughly chilled, I expect,’ Maud said, ‘clambering about on Upper Brockhurst ridge yesterday afternoon. The woods are always dank this time of year.’
I grunted, but fatigue was taking its toll. Her remark failed to register properly with me until Theresa asked, ‘Is that why you didn’t return until late, then, chapman? And what were you doing up on the ridge? I thought you’d already explored it.’
But I was staring at Maud, who, in a sudden flurry of activity, was busying herself with the skillet of dried herring, bent over the fire as though her life depended on seeing that the fish was hot enough to serve. How could she possibly have known that I’d been on the ridge yesterday afternoon when I hadn’t mentioned the fact the previous evening? There was only one answer, of course. The person who had seen me, who had set light to the cage, had been the same person who had called on Maud during the night. Whatever the main reason for his visit, his sighting of me had also been mentioned. But why?
Theresa was pressing me for a reply to her question in the hope, I realized, that I might have discovered something new in connection with her granddaughter’s disappearance. Sadly, I had to disillusion her. But at least I was able to regale her, as we ate our herrings, with the story of the Roman bowls and my interpretation of what had really happened, nearly a century and a half ago, to the two wellers from Tetbury.
Her amazement at my deductive powers was gratifying; although I have to admit she was more concerned with the fact that, since coming to live in Lower Brockhurst, she had been drinking the Blood of Christ from a pagan vessel, than she was with the probable solution to a 130-year-old mystery, which had never interested her much in the first place.
‘Did you know about these bowls?’ she demanded of her daughter-in-law in outraged tones.
Maud shook her head. ‘But I know the stories about Light-fingered Lightfoot,’ she said. ‘As does everyone else in the village.’
‘So what do you intend to do about it?’ Theresa enquired. ‘Don’t you think the village elders should be informed?’
Maud shrugged. ‘You can tell them if you wish, Mother-in-law. The chances are that they know about it already. But if Sir Anselm has consecrated the bowls to the Glory of God, as he apparently assured the chapman that he has, then no one will worry. However they were come by originally, they belong to Saint Walburga’s and the village now. We’re not a wealthy community. We can’t replace a pair of silver bowls except at great cost to ourselves. I’ll have a word with Ned next time I see him, if you like. But I doubt he’ll deem it necessary to do anything about it.’
Theresa breathed deeply, registering her disapproval.
‘This is a heathen place, chapman,’ she confided, lowering her voice to a whisper, ‘as you’ve no doubt discovered for yourself by now. The old magic is still practised hereabouts, in the forest and in isolated villages like this one. It’s so close to the Welsh marches that the ancient customs have spilled across the border and taken root for some miles this side of the Severn. Heresy goes hand in hand here with orthodoxy. And the priests, who should be the guardian of men’s souls, become tainted by it, themselves, in the end. The Papal Commissioners don’t venture into the wilds very often, and when they do, sand is thrown in their eyes. Everyone bands together to protect the village and its secrets, and the Commissioners go away satisfied that all is well.’ She shivered. ‘You must have seen in the woods, as I have, the clooties and the dolls. Offerings to the old Celtic gods.’
‘I … I have noticed them,’ I admitted.
‘Of course, you have. How could you not? And the children are every bit as bad as the adults. They grow up with it.’
‘That’s enough, Mother-in-law,’ Maud said sharply. She rose from the table and began gathering together the dirty dishes, adding unkindly, ‘If you wish to return to a more civilized life in Gloucester, I shan’t prevent you. Now, we must hurry or we shall be late for Mass.’
Theresa flushed painfully at Maud’s words and I felt a sudden rush of sympathy for her, even though I realized how much her domineering ways must irk the younger woman. I tried to distract her by begging some scraps for Hercules from the meal she was preparing for their own two dogs. But when she would have left the cottage, she was intercepted.
‘I’ll take the food out to the animals,’ her daughter-in-law said abruptly, seizing the bowls and picking up a small sack of grain for the geese.
As the door closed behind Maud, Theresa grimaced. ‘She’s in a bad humour this morning. I’d steer clear of her, if I were you.’ And she set about washing the dirty dishes.