‘Gone to visit a friend,’ I suggested.
I could guess which one. And by the look on his face, so could he. But then Master Robin proved me wrong by exclaiming angrily, ‘It’s that Jenny Hodge! I’ve told Marianne, I won’t have her associating with the low-born wife of a tenter. I warned Burl Hodge about it, too. Told him to put a stop to it, but all I got was a mouthful of abuse. Said his wife was quite good enough to be the friend of a brewer’s daughter and the daughter-in-law of a sudsman. He called my father a sudsman!’ Robin strode towards the door. ‘I shall go and see Hodge at once to know why he hasn’t obeyed my instructions.’ Then he paused, remembering that I was there to visit his sister. He turned, anxiety once again creasing his face. But he was saved the trouble of interrogating me further.
‘Ah! Master Chapman!’
A voice sounded behind me, and Elizabeth Alefounder emerged from the kitchen quarters, as cool and unruffled as ever.
‘What do you want with the pedlar?’ her brother demanded before she could speak again.
She gave Robin an icy stare. ‘That is between him and me. Come into the parlour, chapman. We can be private there.’
She was evidently fully at home in her brother’s house and had no compunction in acting as though she were its mistress. I could see by Robin’s expression that he resented this attitude, but also that he was afraid of her — or afraid of what she had dragged him into. His voice rose squeakily when he addressed her.
‘I’m entitled to know what’s going on in my own home. I won’t be ignored. If it’s about-’
‘Be quiet, you fool!’ Elizabeth Alefounder spoke quietly, but her tone would have chilled Lucifer in his inferno. ‘Leave this to me. You’d better go and look for that wife of yours. The saints alone know what she’s up to.’
But her brother was not to be fobbed off so easily. His overstretched nerves suddenly broke and he screamed, ‘This is all your fault, do you hear me?’ And he threw himself at her, violently pummelling her shoulder.
I was so astonished by such infantile behaviour in a grown man that it was a second or two before I moved to go to her assistance. But Elizabeth Alefounder had no need of help from me. She reacted so rapidly that I could not really see how she managed it, but the next moment, Robin’s right arm was twisted up behind his back and he was whimpering in pain. She was a very formidable woman. But then, I already knew that.
Mistress Alefounder released her brother and he fell to the floor, sobbing wildly. She gave him an enigmatic glance that I found hard to define; a considering look, as though she were coming to some sort of a decision about him. I found it quite unnerving.
She turned to me. ‘This way, Master Chapman, if you please.’ And she led me into the parlour.
Here again, the furnishings had changed since the last time I had stood in this room, but it was still the same stuffy and airless little chamber that I remembered, especially in summer. I could feel the perspiration starting to course down my back.
My companion indicated a joint stool with a carved, acanthus-leaf edging, so I folded up my tall frame and sat down, feeling awkward. She herself took the armchair opposite. She was now higher than I was, putting me at a disadvantage, which, of course, was what she had intended. I stared at her defiantly, waiting for her to begin.
This, to my surprise, she was finding difficult to do.
‘You’re … You’re not a rich man, Master Chapman. Or so I believe,’ she managed at last.
‘No,’ I answered coldly, ‘but I’m a live one. No thanks to you and Mistress Hollyns.’
She looked startled at first, presumably by my plain speaking, but then smiled with relief that I had brought the subject into the open. She lifted a green satin purse that I had noticed earlier, dangling from her girdle, and shook it. It chinked richly, and when the drawstring was released, a stream of gold coins cascaded into the palm of her hand.
‘This is all yours,’ she said, ‘if, from now on, you can remember nothing of what happened at Rownham Passage.’
I regarded her thoughtfully. She had no idea that I had already been warned against remembering anything further. She only knew that my initial accusations had not been taken seriously and, accordingly, felt safe.
But not safe enough, apparently. After more than two weeks of mulling things over, Elizabeth Alefounder had decided to offer me a bribe.
I watched her jingling the gold pieces in her hand, but said nothing. My silence annoyed her.
‘Well?’
‘The price of treason?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she answered sharply. ‘What you witnessed …’ I raised my eyebrows mockingly and she continued. ‘Oh, all right, then! What you accidentally became embroiled in, when I mistook you for someone else, was nothing more than a private, family feud …’ Her voice tailed away as she confronted my stare of naked disbelief.
I clicked my tongue. ‘I expected better of you than this, Mistress Alefounder. Are you unaware that your brother has been watched by the city’s law officers ever since last summer, when a man suspected of being a Tudor spy was seen leaving this house? Fortunately for Master Avenel, the man was murdered before anything definite could be proved against him.’
She returned me look for look. I had to hand it to her. She was not a woman to lose her nerve.
‘No, I was not aware,’ she replied coolly. But there was a glint in her eye that suggested her brother would be hearing more from her on this subject.
‘So, I repeat, is this the price of treason?’
‘Surely that depends on your definition of treason?’
She was right, of course, up to a point. To an ardent follower of the House of Lancaster, supporters of the House of York were the traitors. But, like many others of my persuasion, I happened to believe that the sons of York were the rightful occupants of the English throne, being descended from King Richard II’s legitimate heir, who had been illegally set aside by the usurper, Henry Bolingbroke, when he seized the crown as King Henry IV. But even had I been less assured in my convictions, there would still have been an insurmountable obstacle.
‘Henry Tudor!’ I mocked. ‘How can anyone support Henry Tudor? A scion of the bastard line of John of Gaunt! A whey-faced nonentity, who, by all accounts, jumps at his own shadow! Sickly, too, I understand. What sort of loyalty can he inspire compared with King Edward?’
‘The golden boy?’ she sneered. ‘Although not so golden these days, according to what I hear. Running to seed. Too much food, too much wine, too many women. But in any case,’ she added, almost as an afterthought, ‘there are other contenders for the English throne.’
I was instantly alert, especially as her expression told me she was afraid she had said too much. But if there was someone else, it would surely explain Timothy Plummer’s presence in the city and his interest in what was going on.
But I pretended to be sceptical. ‘Other contenders? What other contenders? The Lancastrians had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with Henry Tudor.’
Elizabeth Alefounder flushed with anger and I stood up abruptly. The flush receded and she gave a forced smile, indicating with a slight wave of her hand that I should resume my seat. When I refused to do so, she dropped the coins, one by one, chink by chink, back into the green satin bag.
‘You don’t accept my offer, then?’
‘Did you expect me to?’
She made a little moue of impatience. ‘I didn’t think you a man of many convictions. Certainly not political ones.’
‘You should have enquired more thoroughly, Mistress. Almost anyone in Bristol, including your brother, could tell you that I have worked on several occasions for His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester; that I regard myself as his man.’
‘But you’re still poor,’ she mocked. ‘Oh, I know you have a house in Small Street, but that, as I understand it, has nothing to do with Crookback Dick.’