But Adela gave a quick shake of her head and glanced warningly at the children. If we were going to bicker, the look said, better wait until they went outside to play. Nicholas and Elizabeth might be unmoved by talk of murder and by living in a house where one had once occurred — death, in its various guises, was, after all, a fact of everyday life — but they grew restive if we quarrelled. ‘Tell me what happened this morning,’ my wife invited amicably.
So I did, as lucidly as was compatible with a frequently full mouth and an attempt to trim the details so that they were slightly less offensive to young ears. When I had finished, my wife puckered her forehead.
‘I don’t understand,’ she complained. ‘First you say that Sergeant Manifold had no idea that a stranger had called on Jasper Fairbrother. Then you tell me that he was looking for an excuse to apprehend this man. Why would he want to arrest someone he didn’t know existed?’
I finished my last spoonful of bacon and peas, wiping round my plate with a piece of rye bread. My mouth now clear, I folded my arms on the table and tried out my explanation of events on my wife.
‘My guess — and it is only a guess — is that this man could be an agent of Henry Tudor. Just suppose, for instance, that the King’s spymaster general had received word from one of his own spies that such a man was due to arrive in this country sometime soon and that he was to be put ashore at Bristol; he — the Spymaster, that is — would have alerted the sheriff, who, in turn, would have warned his officers. So, when Richard learned from Master Overbecks and myself of this stranger who had arrived on a Breton ship, he put two and two together and decided that this must be the man he had been expecting, but who had somehow managed to evade his vigilance and must therefore be apprehended as quickly as possible. The fact that he was known to have visited Jasper not long before Jasper was killed provided Richard with the excuse he needed to have the stranger arrested on suspicion of murder, without alerting the world at large to the fact that he was one of Henry Tudor’s agents, or to the fact that he had given Richard the slip.’
‘But you don’t know any of this for fact,’ Adela interrupted in a very wifely spirit. ‘My love, aren’t you jumping to too hasty a conclusion?’
‘I told you it’s guesswork,’ I defended myself. ‘But very inspired guesswork.’ I let her see that I was deeply wounded by her scepticism.
I should have known better. She was unimpressed.
‘Well, my advice is to talk it over with Richard before you take any more leaps in the dark.’
That reminded me. ‘He’s coming to supper tonight,’ I said, and launched into a swift explanation as to how it had come about that the sheriff’s officer was our guest for the second evening running.
Adela took it very well. Too well for my liking, and I knew a sudden, unreasonable pang of jealousy. She was still suffering from the after-effects of Adam’s birth, so I was unable to assert my claim to her affection in the usual way, a fact that made me even more bad-tempered than I was already, and caused me to sulk for the rest of the meal like an ill-mannered schoolboy. But when the children at last went out to play, she came round the table and knelt down by my stool, putting her arms about me.
‘Don’t be grumpy,’ she pleaded. She saw my yearning glance at the mattress, rolled up against the far wall, and laughed. ‘You’re like a little boy deprived of his favourite sweetmeats. It won’t be long now, I promise. Meantime, you’ll have to be patient. But one thing you can be sure of — ’ She kissed me — ‘I miss our love-making every bit as much as you do. No other man has ever meant as much to me as you, my darling.’
I knew it; so I gave a shamefaced grin and allowed myself to be coaxed and petted back to good humour, returning her kisses and telling her I loved her. Mind you, that didn’t stop her demanding, rather sharply I thought, where I was going when, later, I took my leave of her.
‘I thought I might have a word with Walter Godsmark,’ I said casually. ‘Richard must have finished questioning him by now and sent him home.’
‘Roger!’ Adela’s tone was firm. ‘You should be out with your pack. We need the money. This is not an enquiry for the duke. No one has asked you to poke your nose in. I’m sure Richard is quite capable of solving this murder without your help.’
‘Not if he’s set on arresting the wrong man.’
‘How do you know it’s the wrong man? It seems an eminently reasonable assumption to me. We both saw Jasper and the stranger arguing. Incidentally, just supposing your theory is correct, why on earth would Jasper be involved with the Lancastrian cause? He never struck me as a man who cared a groat who’s King and who isn’t.’
‘There must have been money in it for him,’ I decided. ‘It’s the only possible reason. But then, as you say, I don’t know yet that my idea is any more than a bag of moonshine. But there’s certainly no proof — quite the contrary — that the stranger is the murderer. Manifold has no grounds for accusing him.’
‘Maybe not. But I still say it has nothing to do with you.’
I put my arm about her waist and squeezed it. ‘You don’t like injustice any more than I do, sweetheart. The real killer mustn’t be allowed to escape just because it would be more convenient if someone else had done it. Murder is a crime against God.’
‘And spying? If indeed that’s what your stranger is doing.’
I shrugged. ‘A matter of personal conviction. But I don’t suppose God cares a tinker’s curse whether Edward of York or Henry Tudor sits on the English throne.’
Adela anxiously advised me to lower my voice. ‘That remark could be construed either as heresy or treason. Possibly both,’ she hissed.
I knew it. But ever since I was able to think for myself, I have always held the secret opinion that God has far too much to do, what with all the poverty and cruelty in the world, to concern Himself with politics. When the rich and the great claim so confidently to have God on their side, I want to ask them how and why they are so certain. Countries, too; for in my experience, if England wins a battle today, France or Scotland will win one tomorrow, like children on a see-saw. Here we go up, Here we go down; Beggar or King, Rags or a crown. I used to sing that when I was young, playing with my friends on a plank we had balanced on a felled tree trunk. All the same, Adela was right, and I have only ever shared such thoughts with people I can trust implicitly. (By the time anyone reads these memoirs, I shall, I hope, be in a position to be demanding some answers from God Himself, provided that Saint Peter has let me in through the Heavenly Gates.)
I gave Adela a long, passionate kiss, which only left us both more frustrated than ever, picked up and shouldered my pack and set off, promising to earn some money before I returned. What I didn’t promise, as she was undoubtedly astute enough to observe, was not to visit Walter Godsmark.
Walter Godsmark lived with his mother in a cottage somewhere between Saint Peter’s Church and the Mint.
This part of the town, even more than the rest of it, was dominated by the castle, the great keep with its four mighty towers, one slightly taller than the others, peering sullenly over the walls of the Outer Ward. Many poor souls had suffered and perished there. Three centuries earlier, King Stephen had been held captive in its dungeons; the Water Gate had witnessed the tearful farewell of the tragic second Edward and his doomed lover, Piers Gaveston, when Gaveston was exiled to Ireland; and, at the beginning of my own century, when Henry of Bolingbroke had seized the crown and precipitated years of civil war, it had seen the brutal deaths of those loyal to King Richard. Close proximity to it always made me uneasy. Blood and sorrow are embedded in its stones.
I shook off these depressing fancies, made some enquiries, then, having located the cottage, knocked on Goody Godsmark’s door. Walter opened it, his expression growing even more truculent than usual when he saw who it was.