‘Anyone would think he had something on his mind,’ Cissy said.
‘Hah! I think he probably does.’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Come on! You know something. What?’
‘There was talk in the alehouse last night, that’s all.’
‘Oh! You men are worse gossips than all the women in the town. What did they say?’
‘Joce is the town’s Receiver, isn’t he?’
‘You know he is. So what?’
Nob scratched at a blister on his wrist. A globule of fat had hit him there two days ago and it itched like the devil. ‘So he’s the Receiver, and he has to take in all the fines and so on, keep the accounts and pay over what is owed to the Abbey at the end of his term. Well, what if his hand got a bit close to the purses, and a little dribbled into his fingers? And once a little dribbled into his greasy mitts, he chose to take a bit more. What then, eh?’
‘Rubbish! Joce Blakemoor a thief? You’ve been drinking too much ale for breakfast.’
‘You can sneer if you like, but I know what I’ve heard,’ Nob said smugly.
‘And what have you heard, Husband?’
‘Joce hasn’t submitted the accounts for the last couple of years. Why should he do that, unless he’s fiddled them?’
‘Just because he’s bad with paperwork doesn’t mean he’s stolen from the Stannary, does it? Christ’s Balls, you’ve got nothing better than moorstone between your ears, you!’
‘Oh, really? Then why doesn’t he just ask the Abbot for the loan of a decent clerk, then?’
‘Nob, you great dollop, the man probably didn’t want his friends and other burgesses thinking he was as stupid as you! What if the gossip starts? Soon he couldn’t get credit with the traders in the town. He’d never be able to get food, would he?’
Nob was silent, staring at her with wide eyes. She returned his gaze with sudden sharpness, and both glanced at the door.
‘I’ll ask him for cash,’ Cissy promised, folding her arms over her immense breasts like an alewife blocking her door after throwing an alcoholically rebellious customer into the street. Yet while she stood there, she wondered. There was one thing that Sara hadn’t told her, and that was the name of the man who had got her pregnant. Usually if a woman was in her position, she would tell all if the man refused to support her, and Cissy had expected to have the man’s identity shared with her, but Sara had remained coy. Perhaps she still hoped he would look after her and the child; not that he was likely to, Cissy told herself. These men never did. They gave their lovers as much soft soap as they thought the girls needed, and then they ran like the devil.
Next time she saw Sara she’d ask his name. Not from nosiness; she wanted to know if he was preparing to try it on with another girl. Cissy wouldn’t have him doing that if she could stop him.
Simon had been woken a little after dawn by a small and nervous-looking servant. He hated waking in a strange bed, and he much preferred to come to life with the gentle insistence of his wife Meg than with his shoulder being prodded by a pimple-faced youth whose fore-teeth had fallen in or been punched out. Probably the latter, he thought uncharitably as the boy hurriedly withdrew.
There was no sweet wakening here. No gentle kisses or soft, teasing caresses from his wife. Instead, as he yawned and stretched, he was reminded that he was in a room filled with strangers. There was the reek of armpits, of unclean teeth and rotten gums, of feet that craved cleaning with a sandstone rather than with water, and the foul odour of sulphurous bowel gas.
‘Someone needs a physician. He’s got a dead rat up his arse,’ he muttered as he climbed from his bed and searched for his clothes on the floor, scratching at an itch on his lower belly and wondering whether it was a flea. If so, it could have come from the bed – or from the man with whom he had shared it last night. Hugh would still be asleep in the stables, where he could keep an eye on the horses. Simon had sent him there before going to the Abbot when he saw how many were making use of the Abbot’s hospitality, for there were never any guarantees that a mount was safe when there was a thief about, but it was an irritation that Simon must seek his own clothing rather than have it presented to him as usual.
He glanced down at the man who had been his bedmate. The fellow still slept easily, lying on his back, a calm smile on his roundish face, his mouth slightly open to display one chipped incisor. On his chin was a dark stubble, while his brown hair had an odd reddish tinge at his temples that gave him a slightly distinguished look. He didn’t look or smell like the sort of man who would harbour fleas, Simon acknowledged. At his side of the bed was a richly-scabbarded but well-used riding sword of the sort that knights would wear on a journey, light enough not to be uncomfortable over a distance, but still strongly built and balanced as a good weapon.
The others in the room were a less distinguished group. Those who had visited for the coining were gone, and they had been replaced by men who, from the look of them, were of a lower general order: traders of all types, one young friar who had craved a bed for a night, two pewterers who had come for the coining and were enjoying a break before returning, and a man who had a rascally dark head of hair and a scar on his breast, together with the swarthy features of one who has spent many days in the sun and rain.
If any of them were a recruiting officer, Simon thought, it was surely him. He would take money from one man to avoid putting his name on a list, and would replace it with another fellow’s name, no matter that the second was broken-winded, half-blind, a drunkard and had only one arm. Money mattered, nothing else, and an Arrayer, a recruiting officer, would be paid a bounty for all the men he took on irrespective of quality.
With this sombre thought, Simon walked out and sought the services of the barber. The rain had stopped only a short while before, and the air was scented with fresh, earthy odours. It smelled as if the whole town had been washed. As Simon avoided the puddles, the sun came out, with enough strength to give him the hope that the day would remain dry.
The gatekeeper told him that the barber whom the Abbey used was called Ellis; he could be found two streets away. Simon located him in a small room near a cookshop, just behind a brewery. A brazier of glowing coals made the room unpleasantly hot, and a pot of water was boiling on top, with towels dangling. A pair of long-handled wooden tongs stood in it, jumping as the water bubbled below the cloth, threatening to push the tongs out every few minutes, as though a wild animal was trapped beneath.
Ellis the barber was a wiry man with green eyes and almost black hair. His oval face, which lit up with an easy smile as he saw Simon, instilled a measure of confidence, but more crucial than that, to the Bailiff’s mind, was the fact that monks were keen on their own comfort. A barber who nicked the abbatial chins was likely to find himself unemployed right speedily.
‘Aha! My Lord, how can I help you?’
‘I was told that you serve the needs of the Abbey?’
‘That is right, my Lord. I usually get there a little later in the day, though.’
‘Good. I need my beard shaved. Have you razors?’
‘Master, I have everything,’ the man declared, arms held wide. ‘Whatever you need, I, Ellis of Dartmouth, have it. Please sit here on my stool.’
So saying, he pulled the three-legged seat out to the doorway where the light was better, and darted about gathering his tools. A long strip of leather he hung from a hook set into the doorway at his chest height, and he picked up a razor, testing the edge on his thumbnail. Satisfied, he whipped it up and down the strop while chattering.
‘Yes, I am known as one of the fastest shavers in the whole of Wessex, my Lord. Anyone wants a clean chin, they ask for Ellis. No one else will do, not once they’ve been done by me.’