‘Why?’
‘Because I meant to find out what he was doing, roaming around the gaffer’s land on his own. If he wanted to speak to Master Pennard, or Master Gilbert or Master Tom, he should’ve called at the house, or the sheds where we store the fleeces. And I knew Mistress wouldn’t have sent him off on a wild goose chase after them, for they were all three over to Priddy that day.’
‘So you looked in the hut, but there was no one there. Are you quite certain of that?’
Abel spoke in a tone of withering scorn. ‘Have you been inside it?’ He did not wait for my reply, but went on, ‘You can’t have, because if so, you’d know there’s nothing in there but a heap of old sacks.’
‘The hut has only a small window,’ I pointed out. ‘Its interior must be dark. Could Master Gildersleeve have been hiding behind the door as you opened it?’
Abel smiled triumphantly. ‘I thought of that. And he wasn’t.’
‘You looked?’
‘I looked.’
‘And did you go right inside?’
‘No need. When the door’s open, there’s enough light to see everything that there is to be seen.’
I sighed. ‘Very well! You’ve convinced me that your quarry was not in the hut. What did you do next?’
‘I walked all round the outside.’ Abel shivered suddenly. ‘Master Gildersleeve wasn’t there, either. He wasn’t anywhere in sight.’
‘And did you search further afield?’
‘I went back and forth round the hut a few times more and looked inside for a second time, but by then I was truly scared.’ His voice sank to a whisper. ‘I reckoned Peter Gildersleeve had been snatched by demons — they say he was a man who never had his nose out of a book and had forbidden learning — so I ran to the house as fast as I could. Mistress was angry at first because I’d left my flock, but in the end she sent one of the maids with me to see what she could discover. Susanna was as terrified as I was, but we did find Master Gildersleeve’s horse tied up among the trees. We went back and told Mistress, and she said I was to round up my sheep and bring ’em down to the home pasture without delay. Suppertime, Master and young Masters returned from Priddy and I was sent for to tell my tale again.
‘Old Master didn’t make much of it at first, but later, when he and Master Tom and Master Gil had walked to the copse and found the mare still tethered there, he began to think differently. He said Master Gildersleeve would never have abandoned the creature willingly, and that Gilbert must ride to Glastonbury straightaway, before it got dark, to see if Dame Joan or some other could throw light on the subject. He said the family would be getting worried on account of all the robberies there’ve been lately in the district. Though what that had to do with anything, I can’t for the life of me see. The robberies have all been at night. Houses and farmsteads broken into, goods and money taken. We’ve been sleeping with all the shutters closed in spite of the hot weather.’
This explained Mark’s reluctance to leave his chamber windows open. I asked what the Sheriff’s officers were doing about the robberies, but my informant didn’t appear to know the answer. In any case, I felt we were drifting into uncharted waters and made a bid to put us back on course. I got to my feet and reached down a hand to assist him to his.
‘I’d like to look inside the hut for myself,’ I said. ‘Will you come with me?’
* * *
Abel was right. Despite its paucity of light, the hut was so small that with the door wide open it was possible to see into every corner. Heaped in one of them was a pile of old sacking, but the remainder of the beaten-earth floor was bare and swept clean. There were a few scuff marks just inside the entrance — presumably made by Abel when he had peered around the door to ensure that Peter Gildersleeve was not behind it — but otherwise all lay undisturbed. No one had taken refuge there for quite some time.
I stepped back a few paces, the better to view the outside of the hut. Made of stone, with a roof of latticed branches overlaid with moss and twigs, it would be used in inclement weather as a shelter by both men and beasts. The apex of the roof was a foot or two higher than the top of the incline behind it, and although from the front it appeared to be built directly up against the bank, upon closer inspection I discovered that it was possible to walk all round it on level ground.
The dell, as I had recollected earlier, was devoid of either bush or tree. The nearest hiding place, apart from the interior of the hut, was the stand of trees where Peter Gildersleeve had left Dorabella, and it was extremely doubtful if he could have reached its cover without being glimpsed by Abel. Yet if the latter were to be believed, Peter had vanished without trace from this very spot. Still loath to abandon the idea of a rational explanation, I climbed once more to higher ground, Abel following at my heels, and surveyed my surroundings.
From where I now stood, I could see to my left the well-worn track, leading from the upper heights of Mendip, which Cicely and I had ridden on Barnabas yesterday afternoon. It was a rough and bumpy ride, but one which lopped quarter of an hour or more from the journey to the Glastonbury road. It went in a direct line, making no concession to the unevenness of the terrain — a reminder that, centuries ago, the Romans had been mining for lead in these parts.
I spun slowly on my heel in a full circle, and had begun to do so again when my eye was caught by a second track which I had not previously noticed. It curled around the bluff of rising ground to the right of me, leading deep into a ravine between the hills. I wended my way along its length, but at the end there was nothing more than a fall of matted foliage cascading down the cliff-face from a crevice high above to the valley floor beneath. I moved aside some of the greenery, but it concealed only a narrow fissure in the rocks, so I retraced my steps and returned to Abel and his sheep.
He cocked his head knowingly to one side.
‘There’s nothing to see, is there?’ he grinned cheekily. ‘I could have told you that if you’d taken the trouble to ask. Sometimes I have to go round there to rescue sheep.’
‘It must be a lonely life up here in the winter,’ I remarked, glancing about me.
‘I don’t mind.’ Abel shrugged and laughed. ‘These hills are full of surprises.’
‘What sort of surprises?’ I enquired.
One hand made a sweeping gesture. ‘Oh, just things,’ he answered vaguely. ‘I found a coin once with a man’s head on it. Gaffer said it was Roman. Another time I found some bits of an old pot. He said they were Roman too.’ His brow creased into a disapproving frown. ‘Whoever these Romans were, Master Stonecarver, they were very careless.’
I was about to repeat my request that he call me Roger when a man’s voice exclaimed, ‘Here you are, Abel! I’ve been … Hello! Who’s this?’
The young man who had so silently approached while we had been busy talking, was also serviceably dressed in homespun and carried a shepherd’s crook. He was about my own age, perhaps a little younger — it was difficult to tell, but there was no doubt whatsoever that he was Mistress Pennard’s son. He had the same cornflower-blue eyes and dimpled cheeks, the same plump and stocky body. In one respect only did he resemble his father, and that was in the way the elements had weathered and tanned his skin to a rich and leathery brown. It needed few powers of deduction to guess that this must be Thomas, who had been minding his flock higher up and as yet knew nothing of my presence on Pennard land.
Abel, somewhat confused, made us known to one another, and I explained again my reason for taking upon myself the investigation into the whereabouts of Peter Gildersleeve.
‘A strange business! A strange business!’ Thomas muttered, scratching his right ear. With a quick, deft movement, his other arm shot out to hook back a straying sheep from the brink of the little dell where the hut stood. ‘What conclusion have you come to, Master Stonecarver?’