‘’Tween Winchester and S’ampton. Sweetwater Manor. Master Tuffnel gives us all shelter there every year without fail twixt Our Lord’s Birth and Resurrection.’
‘This Master Tuffnel, you know him well?’
‘All my life. My father was warrener to his father. Ned worked on his land.’
‘You grew up together, then?’
‘In a manner o’speaking. Apart from him being the master’s son and me the warrener’s daughter — he’s a few years older ’n me. But he was always good to me and Ned. Helped us when we needed it most.’
I waited for her to enlarge on this last remark, but she offered no more information, getting abruptly to her feet, lighting a second candle and shuffling over to wake the other three men who were still asleep.
‘Wake up, you lazy bastards,’ she said affectionately, prodding each one in the back with a bony forefinger. ‘You’ll be late for breakfast.’
‘I’d better be getting home for breakfast, too,’ I remarked, pulling on my boots and tunic. ‘I’ll escort young Mistress Warrener back here as soon as she’s ready.’
Tabitha shook her head. ‘We won’t put you to so much trouble, Master Chapman,’ she said. She nodded at her grandson. ‘Toby and I’ll come and get her when we’ve eaten. We need to thank Mistress Chapman for all her kindness.’
‘As you please.’ My foot hit against something and, bending down, I picked up a battered tin plate on which reposed the remains of something black and sticky. A faint, sickly-sweet aroma drifted up to me. ‘What’s this?’
Tabitha smiled and held out her hand. ‘That’s my poppy seed and lettuce juice lozenges. Or what’s left of ’em. I always carry a supply when we’re on the road. Set light to them and they burn slowly all night. The perfume helps us sleep when the accommodation’s poor and the beds are hard.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought you needed them here,’ I said. ‘I’ve slept on far worse mattresses than these.’
Tabitha shrugged. ‘Force of habit. And Dorcas is finding it difficult to drop off just now. She’s getting to be an awkward shape.’
I said my goodbyes and went home to find our unexpected guest much recovered and anxious to be reunited with her husband. I assured her that he and Tabitha would be coming to collect her as soon as they had had breakfast and settled down to my own with a will. I also promised myself a change of clothes and a wash under the pump as soon as I had eaten. Adela, bustling around the kitchen, reminded me that she would need a further supply of apples fetched down from the loft.
‘You haven’t forgotten it’s Wassail Day, have you?’
I had, as a matter of fact, and my spirits lifted. This was the fourth day of Christmas and my neighbours and I would be calling on one another throughout the afternoon and early evening with bowls of hot, spiced ‘lamb’s wool’ in order to drink each other’s health; an ancient Saxon custom which the Normans had never quite managed to stamp out.
Waes Hael!
Drink Hael!
By nightfall we should all be as drunk as lords.
We went to church again that morning to celebrate the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket and to beg for his intercession in heaven, then walked home through a sudden, but brief flurry of snow. Adam wanted to know if we were going to see the mummers again in the afternoon but, much to his disgust, I said no. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them or find their plays amusing, but I felt that I had had a surfeit of their company for the time being. Besides which, I had a nagging headache. Adela left us at the street door, saying she had to walk on up to the market and to set the pottage over the fire to heat. ‘I might be a little while,’ she added — which meant that she had arranged to meet Margaret Walker and possibly other friends for a gossip. So I was astonished when, only a very short time later, she reappeared in the kitchen accompanied not only by her cousin, but by the latter’s two cronies, Bess Simnel and Maria Watkins, as well.
Before I could express my surprise at this intrusion, all four women began speaking at once, sending the three older children from the room with hands clapped over their ears. Luke began to yell in competition.
I picked him up. ‘What’s happened?’ I demanded. ‘For the Virgin’s sweet sake, Adela, speak one at a time!’
My wife indicated that the other three should be quiet for a moment.
‘It would seem,’ she told me a little breathlessly, ‘that Sir George Marvell has disappeared.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Disappeared?’
‘What it usually means,’ Maria Watkins said waspishly. ‘Vanished! Unable to be found!’
I ignored her and raised my eyebrows at Adela, but it was Margaret who answered.
‘The story is all over Redcliffe this morning,’ she said, ‘that he retired as usual last night, but this morning there’s no trace of him in his chamber and the bed has not been slept in.’
I handed Luke to my wife. (He was teething again and dribbling all down my neck.)
‘Where’s his horse?’ I asked. ‘Is the mare missing, too?’
The women looked at one another. ‘I don’t know,’ Margaret admitted at last. ‘I didn’t think to ask. I know Sir George uses the stables in Redcliffe Street … But I don’t think it can be or the family wouldn’t be so anxious.’
‘Are they anxious?’ Or was this just an incident blown up out of all proportion by the gossips — especially by the three now filling our tiny kitchen — just to make life a little less monotonous?
‘Word is,’ Maria Watkins told me sharply, ‘that the three other Marvell men have been out scouring the whole of Redcliffe since dawn.’
‘Since dawn,’ Bess Simnel confirmed, her beady gaze darting eagerly around the room, taking note of all that was going on. ‘Adela, my dear,’ she added, grinding her almost toothless gums together, ‘is that the remains of a bowl of plum porridge that I see?’
My wife sighed. ‘Help yourself, Bess. There’s a clean bowl and spoon on the chopping bench.’
While Goody Simnel was eagerly doing just that, Maria Watkins astonished me by asking, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it, Roger?’
‘Me?’ I replied indignantly. ‘It has nothing whatsoever to do with me. Moreover, it’s my guess that Sir George’s horse is also missing and he will come trotting home in an hour or so having been for an early morning canter across the downs. Has Cyprian Marvell enquired of the gatekeeper at the Redcliffe Gate if his father passed through at first light this morning?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ my former mother-in-law said thoughtfully. She nodded briskly at her friends. ‘I think we’d better go back and find out what’s happening. Put that Yule doll down at once, Bess, and come with us. You’re eating poor Adela out of house and home! You’ve finished all that plum porridge.’
The three elderly ladies then departed, leaving Adela and myself to enjoy a quiet laugh at their expense.
‘All the same, do you think there’s any substance in this story, Roger?’ my wife asked, setting Luke down again among the rushes while she stirred the pottage and set the table for dinner.
‘What was the gossip in the market?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t have time to find out. I met the three of them at the top of Small Street. They were full of the story and insisted on coming here straight away to tell you.’
I snorted. ‘What did they think I would do? Or could do? Nevertheless,’ I continued thoughtfully, ‘I’ll walk up as far as the High Cross when we’ve eaten, but not before. Going to church always gives me an appetite.’
We had barely finished our meal, and I was descending from the loft with a basket of apples for the ‘lamb’s wool’, when a knock on the street door heralded the arrival of Richard Manifold, looking harassed.
‘Ah, Roger!’ he said as soon as he saw me. ‘We need men to search the town. Sir George Marvell has disappeared.’
‘It’s true, then,’ Adela said from the kitchen doorway.
He turned towards her, his face lighting at the sight of her. ‘You’ve heard. Who told you?’
‘Margaret Walker, Goody Watkins and Bess Simnel.’ She smiled. ‘Come and have a cup of ale. Sit down a moment. You look tired.’