* * *
I reached Brixton around eleven o’clock in the morning, and my stomach was already protesting at the passing of the dinner hour without any sustenance. It was true that I had breakfasted late, but Mistress Glover had offered me no more than the bowl of gruel, being busy with her other guests and anxious, I suspected, to be rid of me.
I should have stopped at Plymstock, but I was eager to reach my destination and so, for once, ignored one of my most basic needs, the constant plying of my great frame with food. I would eat, I decided, when I got to Brixton; but Brixton was, disappointingly, little more than a huddle of cottages grouped around the church. At least, I thought, I should have no trouble in locating the goodwife who, according to Joanna Cobbold, had seen Beric Gifford pass by on his way to Plymouth, but I was wrong. Going from door to door, plying my trade as an excuse to set foot inside each dwelling — with the added bonus of making a little money as well — I could find no woman who admitted to seeing Beric on the day of the murder. Everyone knew about the killing and was more than willing to talk about it; and everybody had a theory as to what had become of Beric since. But no goodwife claimed, ‘I saw him by the church.’
Finally, at the last cottage I visited, where the woman of the household was no more forthcoming in this respect than all the rest, I said, ‘I was told that there was a witness, here in Brixton. Someone who saw Master Gifford pass by on May Day morning.’
‘A stranger, then,’ her husband hazarded, ‘for to my knowledge, none of our neighbours has claimed such a thing.’ And he glanced at his wife with raised eyebrows.
‘I’ve heard nothing, either,’ she agreed in answer to his unspoken question. ‘When was it, do you know? About what time of day?’
‘It was very early,’ I replied. ‘Beric Gifford was reportedly riding in a westerly direction, so he must have been on his way to Bilbury Street. Would there have been a stranger hereabouts at such an hour who might have seen him?’
The goodman stroked his beard. ‘There’d be drovers and suchlike, taking their animals to market.’
‘Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,’ I said. ‘The person who saw Beric was, according to my information, a woman. But whether old or young, I wasn’t told.’
The goodwife rubbed her nose. ‘A woman! Ah! That’s different. In that case, I can probably hazard a guess as to her name.’ She turned triumphantly to her husband. ‘Gueda Beeman.’
He nodded. ‘Ay. You’re right. That’ll be who it was, not a doubt of it.’
‘Who’s Gueda Beeman?’ I asked a trifle impatiently, when they showed no sign of offering further information, but sat smiling at one another, satisfied that they had solved the riddle I had set them.
‘Eh?’ They both looked at me, blinking in surprise. They had momentarily forgotten my presence.
‘Oh, Gueda Beeman,’ the goodwife continued. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t know. Some people call her a wise woman, some say she’s a witch. But she’s never done any harm to anyone that I know of.’
‘Nor anyone else,’ put in her husband.
‘That’s as maybe. There was a woman once, Kitley way, who reckoned as how Gueda’d put a curse on her. Mind you, she could never prove it, and live and let live’s what I say, as do most of the folks around here.’
‘And you think it might have been this Gueda Beeman who saw Beric Gifford on May Day morning?’ I was growing even more impatient.
‘Most likely,’ the goodwife replied, once more nodding her head. ‘She lives in an old, broken-down cottage, over to Wollaton, and walks into Brixton most mornings, early, to see what she can forage. She knocks on doors, and people’ll give her a bit of stale bread or a few vegetables that are in season, or a cup of milk or an egg. It sees her through the day. Otherwise, she lives on roots and berries and anything else she can grub for in the woods.’
‘A strange name, Gueda,’ I remarked.
‘It’s Saxon,’ the goodman told me. ‘There are descendants of the Saxons everywhere in these parts. Modbury, as they call it nowadays, was once the moot burgh; the meeting place of the district. Before they came.’ And he gave a vague jerk of his head. ‘The Valletorts and the Champernownes, with their fancy foreign names.’
I nodded understandingly. I had come across this phenomenon several times before during my travels, happening upon little enclaves where the traditions and memories of our Saxon forebears continued to be cherished, and where they were talked of as though they had only ceased yesterday, instead of four hundred years ago.
I asked, ‘Can you point me along the path to Wollaton? I’d like to speak to this Gueda, if she’ll let me.’
‘Why?’ the man demanded abruptly. ‘What’s your interest?’
‘Now, Wilfred!’ his wife admonished him. ‘That’s none of our business. If the chapman wants to consult with the wise woman, that’s for him to decide. Come outside, lad, and I’ll show you the way. It’s a bit northwards from here, but not that far, and won’t take you any time at all with those long legs. You’ll find her cottage easily enough.’
‘He might not,’ the man Wilfred objected, knitting his brow. ‘I’d better go with him, just to make certain.’
‘I shall be quite all right,’ I assured him hurriedly. I laughed. ‘I’m used to finding my way about on my own.’
‘Of course you are,’ the goodwife agreed, and turned to glance suspiciously at her husband. ‘What do you want to go prancing about the countryside for? You’re up to something. You’re trying to get out of chopping that wood. I know you, you lazy good-for-nothing!’
‘I’ll have the scold’s bridle on you, woman,’ he retorted, ‘if you don’t watch your tongue.’ But it was said without any great venom, and the snort of wifely scorn that greeted the remark made it plain that Wilfred’s bark was far worse than his bite.
Nevertheless, he carried the day, and when I finally left the cottage, he went with me. But first, I had managed to persuade the goodwife to provide me with bread and cheese and ale, having given her a heart-rending tale of how I had come to miss my dinner, and of the poor breakfast I had received at the Bird of Passage Inn.
‘Aye,’ she had sniffed, ‘they’re a grasping lot, those Glovers. That Katherine, now, the one who’s mixed up in the murder of this Master Capstick, she set her sights on marrying Beric Gifford as soon as his sister took her into the household as her maid. And how she wangled herself into Mistress Berenice’s employ in the beginning, nobody knows, for her parents are common fisherfolk, down in the bay, close to Burrow Island.’
‘You don’t want to take too much notice of my goody,’ Wilfred said as, thanks given and farewells taken, he and I set out along the track to Wollaton. ‘It’s nigh on seven miles to Modbury, and another mile or so south to Valletort Manor, and news loses its freshness over such a distance.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I always swallow everything I’m told with a grain of salt.’ I turned my head and looked curiously at him. ‘Why did you insist on accompanying me? I don’t somehow think that it had anything to do with a reluctance on your part to chop wood.’
He laughed and admitted that I was right. ‘I was afraid that once you’d found Gueda’s cottage, you might go blundering straight in, for the door to the place has been off its hinges for months. I’ve noticed it the last twice I’ve had occasion to pass that way.’