‘No,’ I agreed. ‘It would have been a lot more helpful to have discovered one vacant space on those shelves, with a neatly written label telling us what was normally stored there.’
‘And yet the stone vault in the house was empty,’ Jack mused.
‘Did they come here first, do you think?’ I asked eagerly, following his thought. ‘Then, not finding whatever it was – probably because this place isn’t secure enough for something very valuable – they went on to the house?’
Jack nodded. ‘It looks like it.’ He swung round to look at me. ‘Very determined, weren’t they? Imagine them, finding a way to get inside the house, then discovering that whatever it was they wanted was locked away in that stone crypt thing. And that can only have been conjecture, yet what trouble they then went to, digging a tunnel from the river bank and managing to come up in exactly the right spot.’
‘That part would have been easy,’ I said absently, my mind on the effort it must have taken to tunnel through the earth. Admittedly the distance wasn’t great, and the soil was easy to penetrate, but-
Jack was staring fixedly at me. ‘Easy?’ he echoed incredulously.
I realized what I’d just said. Staring down at my feet, feeling myself blush, I muttered, ‘Some people have a talent for knowing where things are hidden.’
‘I had forgotten,’ he murmured. I looked up. He was smiling. ‘“It has happened, on rare occasions, that I’ve managed to locate lost items”,’ he said.
He was quoting exactly what I’d told him when he first had occasion to ask me to use the strange ability I have to find things. My embarrassment increased, and I dropped my head.
He picked up my unease. He said calmly, ‘If you say it’s easy, I’ll take your word for it.’
We looked all round the warehouse, but to little point other than an appreciation of how thorough the intruders’ search had been. Then abruptly Jack said, ‘What exactly did Mistress Judith sell?’
I had my back to him, investigating a pile of old sacks. ‘Apothecary’s and healer’s supplies. I told you that yesterday.’
He didn’t answer. I turned round, to see that he held a package in his hands. ‘Such as this?’
I jumped up and went to look. The package had been torn open at one end, but even before I saw the contents I knew from the smell that it contained olibanum resin, also known as frankincense. The oil derived from it is used, among other things, to help with coughs and breathing difficulties, but it’s so costly that healers like me rarely see it. Mistress Judith kept a small stock of it, and now here it was in Robert Powl’s warehouse…
‘Yes,’ I whispered. Understanding what he was thinking, I hurried on, ‘But I’m sure Robert Powl’s boats weren’t the only ones who brought such items to the town!’
He threw down the package, grabbed my hand and we ran out of the warehouse.
It took all our combined ingenuity to find a way from the quay back to the market square without being spotted by Sheriff Picot’s watch. And when we arrived at the square, it was to the realization that we stood no chance of getting into Mistress Judith’s house unobserved, since a guard of two stood right outside.
‘Is there a back way in?’ Jack whispered as we peered out from the shadows at the end of one of the many narrow alleys giving on to the square.
‘There is, but won’t that be watched too?’
‘Perhaps.’ Jack paused, frowning. Then, looking up into the sky, he said, ‘It’s not far off midday now. You should go home, and I’ll call for you once darkness has fallen.’
‘But I-’ There was no point in finishing the protest, since he’d already hurried away.
I reached Gurdyman’s house without drawing the attention of the watch, although it was a relief to close the door behind me. Guessing Gurdyman was down in the crypt, I went along to the kitchen. Absent-mindedly, I tore bread and put out cold meats and some cheese. I was hungry after the morning’s exertions, and Gurdyman might well emerge at any minute looking for something to eat.
I’d finished by the time he arrived, so I sat with him in the little inner court while he ate. I thought he might suggest some work for us to get on with, but he didn’t. He was preoccupied, and although he responded when I spoke to him, did not initiate any conversation. Finally I said, ‘Is there anything you want me to do this afternoon?’
He looked up with a start, and after a moment smiled benignly at me; I had the strong sense he’d forgotten I was there. ‘No, child,’ he said. ‘I am – I’m busy with a thorny little problem, and better left alone.’
‘Can’t I help?’
His smile broadened. ‘A kind offer, but no.’ He got to his feet, a hand to the small of his back, and shuffled off along the passage. As he turned the corner towards the steps leading down to the crypt, I heard him muttering to himself.
It looked as if I’d been given the afternoon off. It was bad luck that it happened to be on the very day when our sheriff had just imposed a law ordering us to stay in our own houses unless we had very good reason not to.
I made profitable use of the time. I gave the kitchen, court and passage a very thorough clean, tidied my little attic room, washed out some of my personal linen and baked a batch of the sweet cakes that Gurdyman loves. Then – for I reckoned I had a busy night ahead – I went up to lie on my bed and soon fell asleep.
I was awake and down in the kitchen some time before Jack’s soft knock on the door. It was fully dark, and there had been no sign of Gurdyman. I debated over whether or not to tell him I was going out, but decided not to. He wouldn’t welcome the interruption.
Jack had pulled a dark hood up over his head, throwing his face in deep shadow, and I had arranged my shawl similarly. The pale flesh of a face shows up in torchlight, as does the glint of eyes. Jack nodded approvingly at me. ‘I see you’ve been out on secret missions by night before,’ he observed.
‘Yes.’ More times than I care to remember, I could have added.
‘There are a handful of Sheriff Picot’s watch about, but they don’t seem to be taking their duty very seriously.’ He gestured. ‘Lead on.’
I had worked out in my head how to get round to the rear of Mistress Judith’s house without crossing the square, and I managed to follow the route with only a couple of doublings-back. Quite soon Jack and I stood in a narrow little passage hemmed in on either side by high walls and, indicating the one on my left, I said very quietly, ‘That’s the one.’
‘What’s on the other side?’ Jack’s warm breath right in my ear gave me a strange sensation; not at all unpleasant.
‘A small knot garden where she grows a few herbs,’ I whispered back. ‘Then there’s a rear door into a sort of scullery, and then the living quarters, and the shop facing the square.’
‘I hope old Adela is a sound sleeper,’ he remarked.
‘She may wake up,’ I countered, ‘but I’ll say I’ve come to check on her after her terrible experience yesterday.’
He nodded, looking up at the wall. There was sufficient light from the moon to make out its rough surface, and, in one swift surge of strength, he stuck his fingers into niches and hauled himself up. In a couple of fluid movements, he was sitting on top of the wall, holding out his hand to me.
The jump down on the far side could have been done more elegantly – for me, anyway, although, irritatingly, Jack landed like a cat – and in single file I led us between the low box hedges of the garden and up to the rear door. I opened it, as quietly as I could, and we stepped inside.
The crowded little scullery was where Mistress Judith had made her preparations, and fortunately the moonlight pouring in through the door made it possible to move without barging into things. The smell was very familiar, and for a moment I was back in my dear aunt Edild’s little house. Jack was leaning over a bench and, presently, I heard the rasp of flint as he struck a spark to a candle. Soft light filled the little room, and we could see that none of Mistress Judith’s many items of equipment seemed to have been disturbed.