‘Because you gave me a detailed description of the man who was killed. At least, the part of him that you could see. It seems to tally in every respect with the man pulled out of the Avon. And I’ve only to visit Saint Nicholas’s crypt to check that you’re not lying … Will you still go to Rownham Passage?’
‘I must.’ I pushed aside my empty bowl and rubbed my overfull belly. If I weren’t careful, I should grow fat. ‘I still have to convince that dunderhead, Dick Manifold, of the truth of my story. There must be some evidence somewhere of what happened. Someone must have seen something, heard something, but I wouldn’t trust him to winkle it out. Mind you, I don’t suppose he tried very hard because he didn’t believe me.’
My wife looked guilty. ‘That was my fault, I’m afraid. He knew I wasn’t convinced by your story. As for Margaret …’ Adela broke off, laughing.
I grinned in reply. ‘She’ll be most upset if it can be proved I’m in the right of it, after all.’ The children had finished eating and were beginning to get restless. It was time to be off before I was captured to be a horse or a donkey and give them rides around the kitchen, crawling on all fours. As well as being the man with the flattest chest in Bristol, I was also on the way to becoming the man with the knobbliest knees. ‘I must go if I’m to get to Rownham Passage and back before dark.’
‘Then do as I suggested the other day,’ Adela said. ‘Hire a nag from the livery stable in Bell Lane.’
I’ve never been much good on horseback, although I have ridden, and for quite long journeys. I grew up in Wells and the surrounding countryside, but my chief pastime was playing football, trying to kick a blown swine’s bladder between two upright sticks. I was good at it, too. But with the time at my disposal I couldn’t afford to hire the slowest nag in the stables. The liveryman, therefore, apprised of my dilemma, recommended a solid brown cob; a good little mover, he assured me, but blessed with an even temper. I also paid for the hire of a saddle and duly mounted, feeling strangely unencumbered without either pack or cudgel, both of which I had left at home. I clutched the reins, urged the beast towards the Frome Gate and prayed that I wouldn’t make an idiot of myself by falling off.
The gatekeeper let out a whoop of laughter when he saw me.
‘What you doing perched up there, Roger?’ He grinned. ‘You look pretty stupid. I’d stick to my own two legs if I were you.’
‘I’m going to Rownham Passage and I want to get back before curfew,’ I answered tartly, not sharing in his mirth.
I knew all three of the Frome gatekeepers well, but this man, Edgar Capgrave, was the one I liked least. A little butterball of a man, almost as broad as he was long, with small, shrewd eyes set under beetling brows, he had an aggressive manner that many people besides myself found offensive. Nevertheless, he had an intelligence that his fellow gatekeepers lacked. He signalled me to pass through the arch with a dismissive jerk of his thumb, but instead, I reined in the cob and sat looking down at him.
‘Can you remember who was on duty here last Wednesday week?’
‘Last Wednesday week? That’s a bloody tall order, chapman.’ He puckered his fat little face in a travesty of concentration. ‘How’s anyone supposed to remember that far back?’
‘It was the day of the storm,’ I reminded him.
‘So it was.’ I could tell by the smirk on his face that he already knew that. ‘I might remember,’ he admitted. ‘Anything in it for me if I do?’
‘A groat?’ I suggested through gritted teeth.
He leered up at me. ‘Make it two. A rich man like you, a house owner, should be willing to help out his poorer fellow citizens.’
By this time, there were at least a couple of carts lined up behind me and the cob was growing restless. It moved suddenly, almost unseating me. The gatekeeper let out a guffaw, while one of the carters yelled, ‘Will you get a move on, please?’ Well, that was undoubtedly what he meant.
I gave the horse the office to start. I couldn’t waste any more time: it would soon be midday judging by the position of the sun. But as the cob clattered on to the quayside and, guided by me, headed towards the Frome Bridge, Edgar Capgrave called out, ‘I was the one on duty that day. Wait a few moments until these fools have cleared the archway, and then you can ask me whatever it is you want to know.’
He got a mouthful of well deserved abuse from the carters for his rudeness, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Indeed, the fouler the imprecations, the more they made him chuckle. He was a man who throve on confrontation.
I dismounted and led the cob back towards the gate. Even after less than quarter of an hour in the saddle, it was a relief to have both feet on the ground again. The two carts rattled away and there was a sudden lull in the amount of traffic passing in and out of the city.
‘All right,’ Edgar said, as though we had come to some unspoken agreement. ‘A groat.’
I towered head and shoulders above him. Even on foot, I still found myself looking down at him, a fact which many small people resented, but which didn’t seem to disconcert Edgar in the least.
‘You may not be able to tell me anything I want to know,’ I cavilled.
He shrugged. ‘That won’t be my fault, now will it? Just your bad luck. I’m more than ready to answer your questions. If, that is, you really have something sensible to ask me.’
‘Very well. A groat,’ I conceded grudgingly. ‘Were you on the gate all that day? The day of the storm.’
‘From dawn until curfew. Right! That was easy. Anything else?’ Pleased with his own wit, he guffawed again.
‘Do you know Robin Avenel’s sister?’ I asked. ‘She’s been staying with him, so I understand, since the end of May.’
‘Bess Alefounder? Of course, I know her,’ was the scathing response. ‘Known her since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. You forget, chapman, it’s you who’s the stranger in these parts.’ He proceeded to reminisce, as people will when they want to prove how much more they know than you do. ‘Handsome girl, she was. Older than Robin by about three years, but always treated him like she was his mother. Still does, I reckon, given half the chance, although she doesn’t see him so much nowadays, not since she got married and moved away to Keyford. Her husband was Gregory Alefounder’s nephew, first cousin to Master Avenel’s wife.’ Edgar Capgrave grinned lasciviously. ‘Reckon my fine Cock Robin’s bought himself a packet of trouble there.’
‘Oh?’ I endeavoured to look innocent.
The gatekeeper tapped his nose. ‘I know what I know. I’ve seen sweet little Marianne mooning after that Luke Prettywood. Never wanted to marry Robin in the first place. At least, that’s the word in the taverns. Arranged by the two old men.’
‘The day of the storm, last Wednesday week,’ I said, dragging the conversation back on course. ‘Can you recall if Mistress Alefounder and her maid left by this gate during the day?’
Edgar Capgrave replied without hesitation.
‘Oh, yes!’ he said. ‘Bess Alefounder was the first person through the gate that morning. Curfew had only just been lifted. It was barely light. She was wearing a light woollen cloak, grey in colour, as I recall, and riding that roan mare of hers. Looked down her nose at me, she did, just as if we hadn’t known one another since we were children. Mind you,’ he added viciously, ‘the Avenels were always like that. High and mighty, thinking themselves better than any one else.’
‘Was her maid with her?’ I asked.
The gatekeeper shook his head. ‘No. There was no one with her, not then. But now you put me in mind of it, she did have that Mistress Hollyns alongside her when she came back. That would have been … let me see … sometime around midday, I reckon. About an hour after her brother returned and about an hour and a half before they brought you home, half-drowned, in a farm cart.’ He laughed even louder than before at the recollection.
‘Master Avenel had been out as well?’ I queried.
‘Left by this very gate some two hours after his sister, also on horseback, if you want to know. But, as I told you, he was back after three hours or so.’ Traffic was building up again on both sides of the arch, waiting to be let through. ‘So, if there’s nothing else you want to ask, I’ll have my groat and be about my work.’