‘Isn’t that the pot calling the skillet black?’ I retorted, sliding off the bed. I indicated the apparently solid wall. ‘You’d better let me out. But before I go, I’d be interested to know what it is you’ve done to be branded a traitor by your brother.’
His face lost its recent good humour and assumed a sullen expression. I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. But then, suddenly, he began to laugh, displaying an upper row of surprisingly healthy teeth, with a single blackened one to spoil their general appearance.
‘My younger brother, Mar, and I were urging James to resume hostilities against England; to break the peace and start raiding across the border once again. He refused, so we began to plot with some of the other lords to bring about his downfall. Unfortunately, one of the bastards betrayed us to the King. The rest you know. Mar is dead, and I have been forced to fly for my life.’
Still chuckling to himself, Albany crossed to join me by the wall, where I was shown first the tiny peephole and then a stone similar to the one on the other side, bearing the faint indentation of a six-pointed star. The duke pressed it and yet again the same section of wall swung inwards with the familiar slight rumble and hiccough.
‘When you’ve arranged everything,’ he said, ‘come back here. Whisper through the hole and I’ll open the door from this side. I’ll be waiting, ready.’ He laid a hand on my arm. ‘Don’t fail me, Roger. I’m relying on you.’
By curfew, everything was arranged, but I waited until it was properly dark before returning to shepherd Albany through the Bristol streets and handing him over to the tender mercies of Briant of Dungarvon. When, finally, I rolled into bed, I was well nigh exhausted.
I had first been home to collect Albany’s signet ring and fend off Adela’s indignant enquiries as to where I had been and where I was going — it seemed she had decided to speak to me again, but only to point out my shortcomings as a husband. Then I visited Marsh Street, where my reappearance in the Wayfarer’s Return had been greeted with the sort of suspicion that makes a man want to stand with his back to the wall and a long, pointed knife in his hand. By the greatest of good fortune, Briant had not returned to his ship, and although undoubtedly drunk, he was able to hold his whisky well enough to grasp what I was saying. He listened to my story in silence, and although he had some difficulty in understanding the political machinations that formed its background, he was more than willing to assist a fellow Celt in trouble, especially one who might possibly prove an embarrassment to the English crown. His animosity made me wonder yet again what exactly had happened to Padraic Kinsale.
So, having delivered my charge safely into Briant’s hands, and having been assured of Albany’s undying gratitude and patronage should I ever have need of it, I staggered home to a darkened house and a sleeping family, stripped off my clothes and fell into bed beside Adela, expecting the waters of Lethe to close over my head without delay. But sleep proved elusive as the enormity of what I’d done gradually began to sink in.
I had allowed my anger with Timothy Plummer and his political masters to cloud my judgement to such an extent that I had committed what was tantamount to treason. When, earlier that evening, I had left Albany, the man who had urged his brother, the King, to re-invade the northern shires of England, I should have gone, not to Marsh Street and Briant of Dungarvon, but to Timothy Plummer at the Dominican friary. Instead, I had assisted an enemy of my country to escape to France. A great knot of fear started to form in my stoamch.
I tossed and turned, fell into an uneasy doze and dreamed that I was being marched to the gallows by Timothy Plummer, woke with a mouth as dry as tinder and had to creep downstairs to the kitchen to get a cup of water from the barrel. Adela moaned and grumbled in her sleep, but, thankfully, didn’t wake. Finally, as dawn was rimming the bedchamber shutters, I came to the conclusion that regrets were useless. What was done was done, and provided Albany kept his mouth shut, which he had promised me most faithfully he would do, no one need be any the wiser. Elizabeth Alefounder was unlikely to raise the hue and cry, and as for the miscarrying of her plans, I felt not the slightest shred of guilt.
All that remained for me to do now was to concentrate on clearing Burl’s name by pinning Robin Avenel’s murder on the real killer.
It was during breakfast — another silent meal, although I could feel the frostiness in Adela’s manner beginning to thaw — that I suddenly realized it might prove difficult to lay the blame where it truly belonged without revealing what I knew about the moving of Robin Avenel’s body. I cursed silently and sat, my spoon halfway to my mouth, frozen into immobility. The children found this very funny and began to point and laugh. Adela enquired sharply if I were well.
‘Perfectly well, my love, thank you.’ I laid down my spoon and started pulling on my boots. ‘I have to go out.’
‘Then why aren’t you taking your pack?’ my wife demanded as I laced up my jerkin and made hurriedly for the door. ‘And also that dog of yours! Roger!’
But I pretended not to hear her and fled the house, making my way through the already busy streets to Redcliffe and avoiding Broad Street, although glancing along its length as I passed the turning, I thought I saw a flurry of activity outside what had once been Alderman Weaver’s residence.
I hurried across Bristol Bridge, dodging acquaintances and friends who wanted to stop and talk, and hiding under a shop’s awning until Jack Hodge had passed. He looked ill and drawn, and I guessed he was on his way to visit Burl in the bridewell.
I went straight to Margaret Walker’s cottage and knocked on the door.
‘Where does Luke Prettywood live?’ I asked when she answered my peremptory summons. Her two friends, Bess Simnel and Maria Watkins, peered over her shoulders. They were evidently paying her a morning visit.
‘And God be with you, too, Roger,’ she snapped, affronted by my lack of greeting.
She would doubtless have treated me to a lecture on manners had I not protested that I was on an urgent mission to prove Burl Hodge’s innocence.
Her eyes brightened. ‘You know who really killed Master Avenel?’
I nodded. ‘I believe so. But proving it might be another matter.’
Margaret’s lips set in a determined line, as did those of Goody Simnel and Goody Watkins. ‘Not if I can help it.’ She glanced at me suspiciously. ‘But why do you want to know where Luke Prettywood lives? What’s he got to do with it? You know very well he can’t be guilty. He’d assaulted Jack Gload and been taken into custody by the time the body was discovered.’
‘Just tell me where he lives,’ I pleaded. ‘I know it’s somewhere in Redcliffe, but not which street.’
Her sharp-featured face was suffused with doubt, but eventually she directed me to a cottage near the rope walk, where the former brewer’s assistant lived with his parents.
‘And don’t go upsetting Goody Prettywood,’ Maria Watkins admonished me. ‘She’s a friend of mine.’
I reflected grimly that in a close-knit community like Redcliffe, everyone was a friend of everyone else. That was the trouble with murder; it harmed more lives than just those of the killer and his victim.
As I approached the Prettywoods’ cottage, I could see the ropemakers in their stout leather aprons and caps, two at either end of the walk, their roughened, red hands twisting and re-twisting the lengths of hemp into the thick ropes necessary for binding bales of goods, before they were hoisted aboard ship for despatching overseas.
The summer heat showed no sign of abating, and the cottage’s single window was wide open to the air. As I passed, I could see Luke sitting at a table in the despondent manner of someone who no longer has employment to go to, playing idly at fivestones, one hand pitted against the other. He seemed to be alone, so, without knocking, I lifted the latch and went inside.