I didn’t tell him that nothing on earth would keep me away, merely inclining my head graciously. (I caught Richard’s quickly suppressed snort of amusement.)
The cloaks having been brought and I having wrapped myself up warmly in mine, Cyprian and James Marvell and I followed Richard out into the cold December night. The month was ending as it had begun with sharp flurries of wind and sleet.
The four of us half-walked, half-ran through Bear Alley, along Redcliffe Street and across the bridge, turning left into St Nicholas Back, by which time we were having to force a passage through a gathering crowd. News of a dead body found in the Avon had spread fast and people were emerging from their houses, braving the winter weather, to see for themselves. Richard was compelled to use his voice as well as his staff of office to clear a path.
‘In the king’s name, make way for his officers of the law. Stand aside! Stand aside!’
Jack Gload and Pete Littleman were keeping guard over a dimly visible shape lying at full length on the quayside and smelling to high heaven. A couple of stalwart sailors from one of the neighbouring ships who, by their bedraggled appearance, had evidently assisted in rescuing the corpse, were also helping to keep the crowd at bay. Ripples of light, reflections from the various cressets and torches, turned the surface of the river to molten gold.
Richard stepped forward, holding his own torch high above his head so that the face of the dead man was suddenly illumined …
It was not Sir George Marvell.
Cyprian gave a gasp of what could have been relief. On the other hand, it might have been one of disappointment. James gave no reaction whatsoever.
Richard Manifold frowned. ‘Does anyone recognize who it is?’ he asked.
I drew a deep breath. ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘It’s an Irish slave trader known as Briant of Dungarvon.’
The body had been carried into St Nicholas’s Church, down into the crypt, and laid out on the lid of one of the larger stone sarcophagi. Most of the crowd had gone home, cheated of their very just hope that another gory murder had been uncovered. Cyprian and James Marvell had also returned to Redcliffe Wharf to reassure Bartholomew and the two women that the drowned man was not Sir George. Before he left, James had reminded me — but, thankfully, out of Richard Manifold’s hearing — of our assignation the following morning.
‘Meet me at the Frome Gate,’ he had said, ‘as soon after the dinner hour as you can. I shall hire a couple of nags from the Bell Lane stables. I’m damned if I’m going to trudge up those hills or ride our own decent horses.’
‘It wouldn’t take much more than an hour’s good, steady walking,’ I protested, knowing how uncomfortable I always was on horseback.
But he had proved adamant, and noting that Richard was regarding us with suspicion, I reluctantly agreed. At least the lazy young devil had had the sense to postpone our journey until after dinner.
Now, in the light of a flaring torch held by Pete Littleman, I was staring down on the remains of what had, until so recently, been Briant of Dungarvon. And ‘remains’ was the word for what was left of him. His corpse, stripped of its sodden clothing, was shown to be a mass of bruises and broken limbs. There appeared not to be a whole bone left in his body.
‘Somebody made a good job of ’im,’ Pete remarked gloatingly. ‘Like a rag doll with no stuffing, ’e be.’
Richard Manifold pursed his lips. ‘I don’t believe any person did this,’ he said after a while. ‘It’s more like he’s fallen from a great height. I remember a body we fished out of the Avon some six, maybe seven years ago. A poor fellow who’d been pushed off the top of Ghyston Cliff by his wife’s lover into the river below. The other man confessed what he’d done in the end, and was hanged for it. He told us how the first man’s body had kept bouncing from one rock to the other as he fell all the way down the side of the gorge before finally ending up in the river. And I reckon that’s what’s happened to this Irish slave trader of yours, Roger. He was probably carried out seawards by the ebb and flow, then washed back in by the next high tide, right up to Saint Nicholas Back.’
Immediately, I knew that Richard’s reading of the situation was right. Briant’s body had been battered to pieces. The injuries were greater than any one, or even two, men could inflict. And in order for him to end up in the Avon, a fall from Ghyston Cliff was the most likely answer. But what had he been doing up on the downs? Humility Dyson had told me plainly that Briant had gone to join the Clontarf which, according to his information, had dropped anchor at Rownham Ferry. That would have entailed taking the riverside path around the base of the hills that rose above the city. Why would he have walked up to Clifton perched, as its name implies, high above the gorge? Unless … Unless, perhaps, he had seen and followed someone up there. And who was that someone likely to be other than Sir George Marvell, who might also have left the city that same night?
I checked my wandering thoughts. As I was far too prone to do, I was making unwarranted assumptions, bricks without straw. The only two incontrovertible facts were that the knight was still missing and that Briant of Dungarvon was dead.
‘What will you do with the corpse?’ I asked.
Richard shrugged. ‘For the time being he can stay here — decently covered, of course. Then, when the coroner’s pronounced him dead of accidental causes, he can be tossed into the common pit.’
This callous pronouncement chilled me to the bone. This was a man with whom I had walked and talked very recently. Now he was nothing but a lump of rotting flesh to be disposed of as soon as possible and with as little dignity as possible, thrown into the common pit along with executed criminals and stray animals. I repressed a shudder.
‘What a Christmas this is turning out to be,’ Richard grumbled. ‘Alderman Trefusis murdered, Sir George missing and now this.’ He gave a quick glance around the musty-smelling crypt. ‘Well, there’s nothing more we can do here until I inform the coroner in the morning. Jack, before you go home find something to cover this thing.’ He jerked his head at Briant’s lifeless body. ‘And make sure the crypt’s locked behind you when you leave. Are you coming, Roger?’
I cast one last look at the dead slave trader before following Richard up the steps and into the church. As we stepped outside into the cold and windy dark, he remarked suspiciously, ‘You and young James Marvell seemed very friendly.’
‘He’s easy enough to get along with,’ I answered, settling my hat more firmly on my head and turning up the collar of my cloak against a little flurry of sleet. ‘Not like the other one, Bartholomew.’
Richard grunted and said no more, but I could tell he wasn’t satisfied. Nevertheless, he wished me an amicable goodnight when we parted in the middle of the High Street, he to walk up St Mary le Port Street in the direction of the castle, I to return to Small Street and Adela. Except that I didn’t; at least, not immediately. Instead, I ventured into Marsh Street to seek out Humility Dyson at the Wayfarer’s Return.
At first, he found it hard to take in the news of Briant’s death and even harder to accept Richard’s theory of how he met it.
‘What would he have been doing up on Ghyston Cliff, Master Chapman, tell me that! It don’t make sense. He’d gone to join the Clontarf at Rownham Ferry. He’d not been up on the heights above.’ But he lost interest in the cause of death when I told him what was planned for the corpse. His mouth — or what I could see of it, almost smothered as it was by the profusion of his beard — tightened to a thin red line. ‘I’ll tell the lads,’ he said. ‘Saint Nicholas crypt, you say?’
‘It’ll be locked.’
He managed a smile, albeit a wintry one. ‘Not after midnight it won’t be.’
‘Take care. The Watch has been reinforced.’