‘Jenny’s upset, naturally.’ I answered Adela first. ‘Scared, too. And yes, I have assured her that I’ll do my best to prove Burl innocent. I can’t do more.’
‘You’re a witness against him,’ Margaret accused. ‘So Adela tells me.’
‘And I explained why,’ my wife protested.
Her cousin snorted. ‘I’ve seen that strange beggar around here once or twice,’ she said. ‘If I see him again, I’ll have him chased out of town so fast, his feet won’t touch the ground.’
I caught Adela’s eye. She knew who the beggarman was, but would say nothing unless I gave her permission.
‘You don’t have to be at the Councillors’ Meeting Hall until this afternoon,’ she chided me. ‘There’s no reason to bolt your food like that. You’ll give yourself indigestion.’
Nicholas and Elizabeth, whose ears were always attuned to the adults’ conversation however much it might appear to the contrary, both made a noise like an enormous fart, then rolled around the floor giggling helplessly. Adam, entranced by their atrocious behaviour, tried making similar noises, but only succeeded in blowing a froth of bubbles, which had the other two doubled up and choking with laughter. Even Margaret’s and Adela’s lips twitched.
I swallowed the last mouthful of bacon and pottage, washed it down with ale and stood up. I whistled to Hercules, put on his rope harness and thanked Margaret politely for my dinner. I had had enough of being the butt of my family’s derision.
‘And where do you think you’re going?’ she demanded irritably. ‘Adela and I want to discuss Robin Avenel’s murder with you.’
‘We want to know what you think,’ added my wife.
‘You also want me to prove Burl’s innocence,’ I pointed out. ‘Therefore, I have things to do.’ I kissed Adela. ‘Take the children home when you’re ready. I’ll follow later.’
It was still not midday, although the sun had almost reached its zenith. I pushed my way through the throng of people on Bristol Bridge, up High Street, down Broad Street, under the Frome Gate, across the Frome Bridge, Lewin’s Mead, Saint James’s Barton, past the Priory … I was sweating so much by now that my feet were swollen and my boots inflicting a blister on every toe. Hercules was winded and panting and showing a marked tendency to drag on his rope. He thought we’d gone far enough.
‘Not much further, boy,’ I encouraged him, and indeed, the Full Moon was at last in sight.
Of course, just my luck, it was busy. A large party of pilgrims, on their way to the shrine of Saint Mary Bellhouse in Saint Peter’s Church, had paused for refreshment and to stable their horses. Regulars from Lewin’s Mead were lingering over after-dinner ale and postponing the inevitable return to work. I was hard-pressed to find a seat, let alone catch the landlord’s eye, but eventually I managed to grab the tunic of a passing pot-boy. While I was waiting for him to bring my drink, I scanned the faces of the customers in the faint hope that Timothy Plummer might be among them, but there was no sign of him. Hercules took advantage of my inattention to make advances to a large, black bitch, who, as females will, suddenly decided she’d had enough and turned on him, trying to gouge out his eye. He retired beneath my stool, whimpering pitifully.
‘That’ll teach you,’ I told him callously. ‘Never trust a woman.’
The pot-boy finally remembered me and arrived with my cup of ale. I grabbed him by the tunic for a second time.
‘I want to speak to the landlord,’ I said. ‘Privately.’
He was inclined to scoff until I offered him a groat. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he promised.
But it was another half an hour before the landlord presented himself, sweating profusely and with a face like a thundercloud.
‘What do you want, chapman? Can’t you see how busy we are? You’re not even one of my regulars.’
‘I’m making enquiries on behalf of Jenny Hodge,’ I told him. ‘Burl’s been arrested on suspicion of murdering Robin Avenel.’
‘What’s that to do with me?’ But then the landlord gave a resigned sigh and wiped his wet hands down the front of his leather apron. ‘All right. Step out to the back yard. To tell the truth, I shall be glad of a moment or two’s peace and quiet.’
I rose and followed him, dragging Hercules with me, to a door at the rear of the alehouse that gave on to a small, paved yard, at present crowded with empty beer barrels. The landlord regarded them with a certain amount of indignation.
‘I’ve been hoping that Luke Prettywood and a couple of Gregory Alefounder’s apprentices would turn up this morning to cart this lot away. But I suppose they’re having a Midsummer holiday.’
‘A Midsummer hangover, more like. Especially Luke,’ I said, and told him what had happened.
‘Bloody fool,’ the landlord remarked dispassionately. ‘Picking on a law officer is never a clever idea. You can’t win. But these hot-headed young fellows won’t learn. Cuckoo-foot ale, was it? Usually is at these Midsummer feasts. Now, what can I do for you, chapman? I’ll have to get back inside soon. I can’t leave it all to the boys. It would be chaos if I did.’
He seated himself on an empty barrel and indicated that I should do the same. Hercules sat disconsolately at my feet, dreaming, presumably, of a lost opportunity to display his sexual prowess.
‘Yesterday,’ I began, ‘a beggarman came in here. A stranger. He’s been hanging around the city for weeks.’
I had no need to proceed any further. ‘Oh, him!’ the landlord exclaimed knowingly. ‘He’s been in here a couple of times, and if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that he’s no beggar.’
I didn’t enlighten him. ‘What about the man he met?’
‘Huh! Shan’t forget him in a hurry, because I had the Devil’s own work to understand what he was saying. Got the hang of it in the end if he spoke very slowly and distinctly. He was a Scot.’
‘A Scot?’ I echoed in disbelief.
But if that were true, Jack Hodge would have been none the wiser, even had he been able to overhear the man’s conversation with Timothy Plummer. For the speech, not only of Scotsmen, but also of our own countrymen from the wild wastes in the north of England, is as incomprehensible to a Wessex man’s ears as our way of talking is to them. Bristolians are attuned to the way Irishmen, Frenchmen, Bretons, Castilians, Aragonese, Portuguese and any other nationality whose ships tie up daily at our wharves mangle our tongue. But Scotsmen are a mystery, their country as remote as the moon. Presumably Timothy had been able to understand this man; but then, Timothy was a part of the court, which was constantly on the move, travelling the length and breadth of the country and in communication with all sorts and conditions of people.
But what on earth was a Scot doing in Bristol?
Without realizing it, I must have voiced the question aloud, because the landlord of the Full Moon shrugged and said, ‘All I know is there’s been some sort of trouble between the Scottish king and his brothers. Pretty much like our lot when you come to think about it.’
I raised my eyebrows at him. ‘How do you know?’
He eased himself further back on his barrel, so that its raised rim cut into his ample thighs at a different angle.
‘Some weeks back, a Dominican friar stopped here on his way to the friary in the Broad Meadows. He’d come from way up north — Durham or some such godforsaken place.’ We’re nothing if not biased down here in the west. ‘They’re nearly as close to the Scots there as we are here to the southern Welsh. Apparently, the rumours from across the border are that King James has accused both his brothers of treason and the younger one, the Earl of Mar, has been found dead in suspicious circumstances. The older one, the Duke of Albany, has vanished. Wise fellow! No one knows where he is, but the odds are on him having fled to England with a view to making his way across the Channel to France.’ That made sense. The French and the Scots have always been as thick as thieves. The landlord heaved himself off his barrel. ‘Now, I must be getting back,’ he went on. ‘I’m sorry not to have been of more help. When you next see Jenny Hodge, tell her I think Richard Manifold’s a fool, if that’s of any comfort to her.’