Agnes Littlewood shrugged. ‘It’s no good coming to me. Miles left two years back. Never said where he was going — or even that he was going. Went out one day and never returned. My sister and her man waited another six months, but when he didn’t reappear, they moved on to our other sister at North Nibley, where they still are today. But I can save you a journey if you’re thinking of going there. I visited them all only last week, and they know no more now of Miles’s whereabouts than they did on the day he disappeared.’
‘You’re sure of this?’
She threw me a look of contempt without deigning to reply.
‘Thank you, mistress,’ I said eventually. I felt certain she was telling me the truth. There was nothing more to stay for. ‘I’ll take myself off then.’
I turned towards the door but as I did so, I heard her take a breath as though she would add something. I turned back, raising my eyebrows.
She hesitated, then said, ‘Someone who knew Miles did say he thought he’d seen him in Bristol three months ago. It was someone who lives down that way and was passing through North Nibley on his way to Gloucester. He recognized my brother-in-law in the street and stopped to talk to him. Mind you, he wasn’t at all sure it was Miles he’d seen, but he thought it might have been.’
‘Three months ago,’ I repeated and Agnes Littlewood nodded. ‘But the man was uncertain?’ She nodded again. ‘Who was the man? Do you know his name?’
‘I think my sister called him John Cleghorn and said he was a baker by trade. But she didn’t set much store by his having seen Miles. She remembered Cleghorn and thought him a bit of a liar.’
‘Why would he lie about such a thing?’
Again came the shrug. ‘Why do people lie about anything? Why are you lying to me now?’
I was taken aback. ‘Am I?’ I managed to get out.
‘Yes.’ She was unequivocal. ‘But you’re not going to tell me why, so I’m not going to waste my breath asking.’
Before I could gather my wits together and decide whether or not to tell her the truth, the door opened once more and an old man, leaning heavily on a stick, came in, pausing just inside the doorway. This, I guessed, must be Alfred Littlewood, but the light of the snowy scene outside was behind him, and I could not immediately see his face.
‘There’s someone here,’ he said, raising his head and turning it from side to side. ‘A stranger. I’ve warned ’ee, Agnes, about letting in strangers.’ He sniffed. ‘An’ I reckon it’s a man an’ all.’
It was then I realized that he was blind.
His daughter pulled him inside and shut the door. ‘You’re letting all the cold air in, you silly old fool.’
‘Who is it? I’ll not be kept in the dark.’
The irony of the remark seemed to strike neither of them. Agnes removed his hat with an impatient gesture and pushed him down into the chair.
‘It’s only a nice young fellow asking about Miles. There’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s going now.’
I was at last able to get a good look at Alfred Littlewood, an old, bent man with wispy grey hair and a weather-beaten skin. Round his head, covering his eyes, was a dirty bandage which sank into his eye sockets as if there was nothing behind it. And with a shock of distaste, I knew suddenly that the sockets were empty: the eyes had been torn out. At the same moment, I remembered yet again something I kept thrusting to the back of my mind; the removal of Sir George Marvell’s eyes from his dead body. The bile rose in my throat.
I saw Agnes look at me sharply and with contempt. She had noticed my expression of revulsion, although she was wrong in thinking her father was its cause. But before I had time to say anything in my own defence, the old man lost his grip on his stick and it dropped with a clatter. I stooped quickly to pick it up while he groped around ineffectually with both hands. And it was then I suffered a second shock. The first two fingers of his right hand were missing.
Without thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed his right wrist.
He let out a yell that demonstrated his lungs, at least, were in good working order.
‘What’s he doing? What’s he doing? I warned you, Agnes, about letting strangers into the house. He’s going to murder the pair of us.’
‘Don’t be foolish, Father,’ was the acid retort. ‘All the same,’ she added, addressing me, ‘I’d like an explanation of your conduct. And come to think of it, you haven’t yet told me your name.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, releasing the old man’s wrist and restoring his stick to him. ‘My name’s Roger Chapman. Master Littlewood,’ I went on, ‘this Christmas we’ve had a troupe of mummers to entertain us in the castle yard at Bristol. One of the men, the older one, a man of maybe your age, has injuries just like yours except that he’s not blind. But one of his eyes has terrible scarring around it and the first two fingers of his right hand are missing.’
Alfred Littlewood at once became very excited. ‘What’s his name? What’s his name, young fellow? Do you know it?’
‘Ned Chorley.’
Alfred’s face fell and he shook his head. ‘Thought I might’ve known him, but I don’t. However, I’ll tell you this. Your mummer was once an archer in the French wars, like me. We were the cream of the army, we were. We were the English Goddams them French bastards feared the most. And if they caught us, do you know what they did to us? First, they hacked off our bowstring fingers, because without the first two fingers of your right hand, you ain’t never going to be able to pull a longbow again. Then them devils gouged out our eyes and cut off our balls. Finally, if you were lucky, they finished you off with a dagger thrust or strangled you with a rope.’
‘And if you were unlucky?’
‘They turned you loose to wander about until you died.’
‘That happened to you?’
He nodded. ‘But I was found by two of our scouts who’d got into the French camp in search of information. They guided me back to our own lines.’
‘And this Ned Chorley?’
The old man sucked on one of his few remaining teeth. ‘He must’ve been rescued before they really pushed out his eyes. He were more fortunate than me, then. But his days as an archer would’ve been finished.’
I stared ahead of me blankly, getting my thoughts in order. So Ned Chorley had been a soldier, an archer. The idea had never occurred to me, and yet I realized that it should have done. I remembered suddenly his talking about King Richard and what a good strategist he was, his glowing admiration for his military skills in the way only an old soldier would appreciate. And the missing fingers, the scarred eye, were now explained. At some time in his life he had been taken prisoner by the French, but rescued before they could really wreak their vengeance on him.
I brought my attention back to Alfred Littlewood. ‘You’re quite sure you never met him, master?’
The old man shook his head impatiently. He was beginning to lose interest in the subject. ‘Where’s my dinner?’ he whined.
‘It’s not dinnertime for a while yet,’ Agnes snapped. ‘You’ve only just had your breakfast, you greedy old villain. Sit there and warm yourself at the fire while I see Master Chapman out.’ She opened the cottage door again with a gesture it was hard to ignore. As I huddled my cloak around me and stepped out into the still lightly falling snow, she asked, ‘Will you go on to North Nibley?’
‘No. I must be home in time for Twelfth Night Eve,’ I said. ‘I’ve promised my wife and children to be there. Besides, I doubt if your brother-in-law could give me any more information than he’s given you. If this John Cleghorn lives in Bristol or in Clifton Manor, I’d do better trying to find him myself. Though from what you say I don’t suppose he’ll have anything of interest to tell me.’
I moved away and heard the door shut behind me before I had gone more than half a dozen steps.
I saw no reason to linger in Nibley. The journey had not been entirely fruitless, but I doubted I was going to learn anything more. Also, the snow might increase and I had no wish to be stranded. If I left now before conditions worsened I could be much more than halfway to Bristol by nightfall, which meant that, although I never liked travelling on a Sunday if I could help it, I might very well be home by dinnertime the following day. So I said farewell to my hostess, who seemed genuinely sorry at my decision to leave, fetched my reluctant horse from his cosy stable and set off southwards, comforted by the thought that I had something, at least, to report to James Marvell and that the journey had not been a complete waste of my time and his money. There was now at least the possibility that Miles Deakin might be somewhere in Bristol. If we could find a baker called John Cleghorn, maybe he would be able to tell us more.