Peter shrugged. ‘I care not. I hope he is dead and broiling in hell, but if I met him on the street, I would think it my duty to try to save his soul. I might even shake his hand. Repellent thought.’
Shortly afterwards the bell began to toll, and Peter sighed and gave his farewell, making his way to the church and the last service of the day.
Simon was strangely happy to see him go. He had never heard a bad word about Brother Peter; the Almoner was known among the townspeople to be a gentle, intelligent and mild-mannered man, but something about him today made Simon feel cautious. The monk had been interested to hear about the dead man, and if Simon was right and Peter had attempted to distract him, maybe drawing him away from the real killer and instead focusing his attention on the miners, that could indicate some form of complicity or guilt.
It was something that he should ask about, he decided. Turning, he was about to make his way back to the welcoming room and ask for a fresh pot of ale, when he caught sight of a figure standing at the top of the stairs leading to the guest rooms: Sir Tristram.
The knight was staring after the disappearing monk. As though feeling Simon’s eyes upon him, he glanced down, his face empty of any emotion. Without even acknowledging the Bailiff, he suddenly turned away, into the guest room, leaving Simon aware of a sense of grim foreboding.
Cissy pushed the last of her customers from the pie-shop and shut up the door, dropping the peg into place on the latch so it couldn’t be lifted, then shooting the bolt.
She was tired. After the coining the previous week, they hadn’t stopped. Sunday, supposedly the day of rest, had been hectic: Emma, Hamelin’s wife, who was always struggling to feed her children, while her man lived out on the moors for seven weeks in every eight trying to make enough money to keep them all, had burst into tears in the street, Joel in her arms and three of her brood hanging on her skirts, and Cissy had pulled her into the parlour, sitting her in one of Nob’s chairs and warming a little spiced wine for her. She had always kept the toys her own son had played with, and now they were a boon. She brought them down from the shelf in their box and the three children fell upon them with squeals of delight. When Nob poked his head about the door, Cissy glared at him until he shamefacedly disappeared, returning to the alehouse he had just left.
‘You sit there, maid. You’ll soon feel better.’
Emma sobbed into her skirts, unable to speak while Cissy clattered about the place, cutting up one of the pies Nob hadn’t sold the previous day and setting the pieces on the box for the boys, then slicing another in two for Emma. She had a bread trencher, and she put the pie on it, filled a large cup with the wine, and held it near Emma until she could smell it.
The girl looked at it, her brown eyes watery. She was not particularly attractive, with her large, rather flat nose, and the almost circular shape of her face, but her heart was good, and Cissy had sympathy for any woman who must raise six children, five of them boys, on her own. Many other women were in the same situation, of course, but that didn’t make it any less tiring. What’s more, poor Emma had lost both her parents and her husband’s during the famine, so there was no family to help her. She had to rely on neighbours and friends with young families, and sometimes such people couldn’t do much.
‘What is it, maid? Things got on top of you?’
‘It’s my little Joel. He’s fading away.’
The mite was only a year old, but scrawny, and hadn’t ever had much of an appetite. Prone to crying, he was probably more than half the reason Emma was always so tired, because his whining wail could be heard all through the night, and Cissy knew that he kept Emma from her sleep.
‘He’s not eating?’ she asked.
‘Oh, he’s eating a bit, but not enough. I don’t know what to do!’
Cissy listened to the girl with a sense of futility. Emma was on the brink of despair. Her husband’s venture was petering out and he was scurrying about trying to find a fresh deposit, but so far there had been no luck. It was maddening, but there was no guaranteed reward for hard work, and then the tin ran out, and it was beginning to look like her family would soon have nothing. No income at the next coining meant no food for the children.
‘And my Joel, he won’t eat now. He looks up at me like he’s starving, but he won’t eat anything when I try to get him to feed, and he’s wasting away, the poor sweetheart. It’s been three days, and he’s not had hardly anything, not even when I’ve chewed it up and given it to him in a paste.’
‘He won’t suckle?’
‘No. He refuses my breast, just turns his head away when I get it near him.’
Cissy pursed her lips. It was more usual for children to be breast-fed until they were two or three years old, and hearing that the lad refused his mother’s pap was alarming. She had seen Joel only the other day and had thought then that he looked weakly and unhappy, although his belly was large enough. Asleep now in Emma’s arms, he looked restless and irritable.
She was no midwife. Her own boy had been an easy child, although he had become more difficult to feed later in life, growing fussy with his food. For some reason he disliked his father’s meat pies; but no, Cissy told herself sternly as her mind wandered, that was unimportant compared to Emma’s present and very real problems.
‘I have taken him to the Abbey, and they have said prayers for him, but what else can I do?’
Cissy sighed. She had remained with Emma for ages, calming her as best she could. If it was God’s will to take the child to His arms, He would, and there was nothing that the people of Tavistock could do about it. All Cissy could do, in all truth, was try to soothe her friend.
‘There is one thing you could do,’ she said suddenly. ‘You could mix some honey with milk, and give that to him. It sometimes works. Can you afford some honey?’
Emma sniffed and wiped at her eyes. ‘Yes. Hamelin gave me his purse.’
Cissy’s eyes grew round as she saw the money in Emma’s hand. ‘Whee! He gave you all that? He must have sold a lot of tin!’
Emma became a little reserved. ‘No, he sold a debt to Wally before he died.’
‘Some debt, girl. When did Wally ever have so much money?’
Emma concealed the money in the purse again. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he grew lucky? There was no report of a man being robbed, was there? If so, perhaps I’d think evil of Wally – but no one has, so it must have been his money somehow.’
Cissy opened her mouth to argue, but then glanced at Joel and her expression softened. ‘Right, well you have enough to do him some good, anyway. Buy honey and some milk from the first morning milking, when it’s rich and creamy. Give him that, and then try him with soft bread dipped in honey too. Once he’s eating again, you can change his diet.’
By the time she had hustled the girl from her door, Emma’s tears were at least a little abated, although while her child refused to eat, she would remain petrified with fear that she was going to lose him. Also, now that her husband’s mine appeared to be failing, she knew that the rest of her children might suffer the pangs of starvation before too long.
It was a terrible thing to lose a child. Cissy hated the very idea. A devoted mother, she adored her children. One boy and two girls, and all fine, healthy, strapping creatures who had given her, so far, seven grandchildren. Her only regret was that all had moved from the shop as soon as they had married. Of course it was usual for a girl to do that, moving in with her in-laws, but it was sad to lose a son. And such a son Reg was! Tall, hair as dark as a crow’s wing, his eyes deep brown; she thought he was perfect. But he had been convinced of his calling, and he had needed to follow it. That was all there was to it. Perhaps in years to come he would marry and give her the extra grandchildren she wanted.