‘Your usual chamber,’ her aunt called after her, but there was no response.
Theresa Glover sighed. ‘This has been a bad business,’ she said. ‘Five months on, it’s still the talk of Plymouth, and the gossip shows no sign of dying down yet. Well!’ She rose to her feet and began collecting the dirty dishes together. ‘I told my brother-in-law and his wife at the time that no good would come of allowing Katherine’s betrothal to Beric Gifford. There was bound to be trouble over the inequality of the match. It stood to reason that old Oliver Capstick wouldn’t tolerate it, and he held the purse strings. Oh, it’s no good you frowning at me, Maurice, and shaking your head. The chapman’ll hear worse than that from other people, if he’s interested enough to listen. You go and make certain that all the shutters are secured against this wind. There’s one with a loose catch in the corner chamber, where I’ve put Roger.’ For she had prised my name out of me while we were having supper, and now used it, relishing the familiarity.
The landlord reluctantly departed to obey his wife’s instructions, grumbling to himself, but plainly used to doing as he was bidden.
When he had followed his niece upstairs and disappeared from view, I asked Theresa Glover, ‘What do you think has happened to Beric Gifford? The talk in Plymouth is that he’s eaten the leaves of Saint John’s fern and made himself invisible.’
I had expected her to deride this idea with all the contempt of which a strong-minded woman was capable. But, instead, she crossed herself and her eyes assumed a wary expression. ‘I suppose it is possible,’ she answered. She was silent for a moment, then said slowly, ‘The truth is, that there are some people in these parts — sensible people, not given to extravagant fancies — who are ready to swear that they’ve seen Beric. Not close to, perhaps, but recognizable, even though he was in the distance.’
‘I’d heard as much myself,’ I answered, ‘but was inclined to dismiss the possibility. But if these people are speaking the truth, then he must be in hiding somewhere, succoured by his sister and your niece.’
Theresa Glover shook her head emphatically. ‘Katherine has assured both her uncle and myself, as well as her parents, that she has done with Beric and never wants to see him again.’
‘Isn’t that what she would tell you?’ I asked sceptically. ‘Especially if she’s protecting herself and him.’
Mistress Glover looked uneasy, but said, ‘Katherine has always been very truthful, even as a child. Far too truthful on occasions, to my way of thinking.’
‘Everyone’s capable of lying,’ I argued, ‘particularly if he or she is guarding something or someone precious.’
My companion was loath to agree, but eventually admitted, ‘You could be right, I suppose.’
Her husband came back into the room, a disapproving look souring his face. ‘Still gossiping?’ he snapped. ‘I thought you’d have had these dishes cleared away and washed by now.’
If he had hoped to discomfit his wife, he was mistaken. ‘Are you certain that everything is secured upstairs?’ she countered waspishly. ‘Have you repaired that catch in the corner bedchamber?’
‘I’ve done my best,’ he answered sulkily. ‘It shouldn’t give you any trouble, chapman.’
I thanked him and said that, with his and Mistress Glover’s permission, I would retire. ‘It’s been a long day,’ I added: and indeed it seemed an age since my talk with Mistress Trenowth that morning. Moreover, my previous night’s sleep had been disturbed.
I was given a candle to light my way upstairs, and Theresa Glover insisted on accompanying me in order to show me my room. But when she would have entered with me to assure herself, as she said, that all was well, I bade her a firm good night and shut the door behind me.
As far as I could see, the Bird of Passage boasted only three bedchambers, and I guessed that the one at the front of the inn was used by the Glovers themselves. Its door stood wide open, showing an empty bed, whilst that of the chamber next to mine was tightly closed. Doubtless, the room was occupied by Katherine Glover, already sound asleep. There was little furniture in my own room, but the bed looked clean and comfortable and there was an iron chamber pot in one corner. Having relieved myself, I divested myself of most of my clothes and climbed thankfully between the sheets, tucking the coarse woollen blanket well up under my chin.
I lay for a little while, listening to the wind buffeting the house, soughing through the branches of the trees and rattling the shutters of my window. But I was too tired to stay awake for long, and with thoughts of Adela uppermost in my mind, I, too, was soon lost to the world.
Chapter Seven
During my years as a novice at Glastonbury Abbey, the discipline I most hated was having to leave my bed in the early hours of the morning for the service of matins, and again at sunrise for lauds. However uncomfortable my pallet, it was infinitely preferable to the chill of the night stairs and the empty, shadowed reaches of the great church, cold even in the heat of summer. Consequently, my worship was never more than half-hearted, and it was not unknown for me to fall asleep and have to be nudged into wakefulness by my neighbour.
But God has had His revenge. Although I long ago left the monastic life behind me, I frequently find myself, even now, in old age, waking up in the small hours of the morning, condemned to a period of restlessness before I can fall asleep again. And that night at the Bird of Passage Inn was no exception. But as I struggled back to consciousness through the clinging threads of dreams, I realized that there was another reason for my arousal. The faulty latch, mentioned by Theresa Glover, had obviously sprung again, with the result that both shutters were swinging loose in the wind, banging every now and then against the outside wall.
Cursing, I got out of bed, crossed to the window, opened the inner casement, then leant out to take hold of the shutters, one in each hand. The rain had ceased and a thin wisp of moon appeared from time to time, scudding across the sky between the blown wrack of clouds. Apart from the noise of the wind, which had considerably abated, and the distant hushing of the sea, all was quiet, so that the high-pitched whinny of a horse came clearly to my ears. Katherine Glover’s palfrey was also restless, I thought, until a sudden flash of movement away to the left, drew my attention to the stand of trees.
I froze into stillness. I had almost closed the shutters, but not quite. A gap of some three or four inches remained between them, a wide enough aperture for me to see through without being seen in return. And provided that I held them still, I doubted if the fact that they were open would be noticed from the ground. I had no notion what I expected to happen next, but something was afoot, and I felt the hairs on the nape of my neck bristle in anticipation.
After a few moments, the figure of a man, muffled in a dark cloak and wearing a flat-crowned hat, emerged from the trees and approached the inn, stooping on his way to scoop up a handful of loose stones and small clods of earth, which he flung without hesitation against the closed shutters of the window next to mine. (‘Your usual chamber,’ Theresa Glover had told her niece.) He was forced to repeat this manoeuvre several times before he was rewarded with the cautious opening of the casement and the emergence of Katherine Glover’s head. To be truthful, this was beyond my range of vision, but I guessed that she must have appeared when I heard her sudden, startled cry and the hiss of her indrawn breath.
‘You fool!’ she whispered. ‘Whatever are you doing here? Get back and hide before anyone wakes up and sees you. Wait! I’m coming down.’
There was a low chuckle of amusement from below before the cloaked figure turned and did as he was bidden. Presently, there came the faint sound of the bedchamber door next to mine being opened, and the creak of a floorboard on the landing. I remained where I was, not knowing what to do. My impulse was to go after Katherine Glover, but if I finished closing my shutters or let them swing free, the movement would be noticed and the nocturnal visitor frightened into immediate flight. Furthermore, he and the girl would know that I had seen and heard them; and if the man was, as I suspected, Beric Gifford, I wondered how safe my life would be in the future. Someone who had already done one violent murder was unlikely to balk at committing a second.