‘I’m looking for Mistress Gerrish,’ I said. ‘Mistress Juliette Gerrish. Do you know her?’
‘I should do,’ she answered tartly ‘I’m her companion. Who are you?’
‘An — an old friend.’ I cursed that slight hesitation which immediately made the woman suspicious. I went on quickly, ‘I knew Juliette some years ago and, as I happened to find myself in Gloucester’ — I indicated my pedlar’s pack — ‘I decided to pay her a visit, for old times’ sake.’
The woman regarded me straitly for some moments, but evidently finding nothing in either my appearance or manner to give her any particular unease, said at last, ‘As I told you, I’m her companion, Jane Spicer. Mistress Gerrish and the boy are out at this present and won’t be home yet awhile. Come again tomorrow. Who shall I say called?’
‘I could wait,’ I offered. ‘Or come again this evening.’
But this Mistress Spicer would not allow.‘I’m not prepared to be alone in the house with a stranger,’ she announced flatly. ‘And we don’t open the door once it gets dark. So, come tomorrow. Or not at all. You still haven’t told me your name.’
‘What happened to her uncle, Master Moresby?’ I asked.
‘He died two years ago last Michaelmas.’ The woman eyed me up and down, but I could see that her somewhat severe features had softened a little. The fact that I knew of Robert Moresby had reassured her. Nevertheless, she was not prepared to relax her rules in my favour. ‘Come again tomorrow. But first, tell me your name.’
I could see no help for it. To withhold it would only reawaken her suspicions. On the other hand, once Juliette knew who had called, she might take steps to avoid me.
‘Roger Chapman,’ I said. ‘Tell Mistress Gerrish that I shan’t leave Gloucester without seeing her.’
This brought the frown back to Mistress Spicer’s face, so before she could question me further, I turned and walked away.
It was too early yet to meet Oliver Tockney at the New Inn. I had stipulated the hour of Vespers and, by my reckoning, that would not be for another half-hour or more. So I joined a party of pilgrims making their way into the abbey but, once inside, detached myself from them and walked around on my own.
The inside of the great building was busy as always, with some of the monks making ready for the service while others stood guard over Edward II’s tomb in the North Ambulatory, making sure that none of the younger pilgrims secured their own immortality by carving names or initials into the marble. For my own part, I wandered as far as the Choir to stare down at the battered image of Duke Robert II of Normandy, eldest son of the Conqueror, whose father had bequeathed him a dukedom but not a kingdom, and who had spent his life trying to wrest what he regarded as his birthright from his brothers, William and Henry.
After a little while, I, too, made my way back to King Edward’s tomb, looking through the marble columns at his effigy, at the luxuriously curling beard and hair, and reflecting, somewhat cynically, that if the monks of Gloucester had not taken in and given burial to his mutilated body, the abbey would never have grown as rich as it was today. For once our forebears had finished reviling him as a weak ruler, a coward who had allowed himself to be ignominiously beaten by the Scots and, worst of all, a sodomite, they had suffered a typically English revulsion of feeling, turned on his conquering French wife and her lover and elevated Edward almost to the status of a saint. So many people began flocking to his tomb that an inn — still called the New Inn although it was now more than a hundred years old — had been built especially to accommodate them.
Which reminded me. . I left the abbey just as the pilgrims were being herded into the nave for Vespers and made my way back to the inn.
Oliver was already there, anxious to show me some of the bargains he had obtained, but even more eager to inform me that not only had he secured us a decent room for the night, but that there was a carter staying at the inn with whom he had struck a deal to take us nearly all the way to Bristol, starting early the very next morning. His expression invited congratulation, and his face fell ludicrously when I refused the offer.
‘I’m sorry, Oliver, but I’ve unfinished business to attend to in Gloucester tomorrow. Don’t worry, we’ll find another carter going our way.’
His jaw jutted ominously. ‘You don’t know that.’
‘Not for certain, no. But it’s more than possible.’
The jaw jutted even further. ‘I’m not interested in “possible”. This is a certainty. This man says he can take us as far as a place called Westbury, and that Bristol is only a matter of a mile or two from there.’
‘That’s so,’ I admitted. ‘All the same, I’ll have to refuse.’
My companion took a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m going,’ he announced defiantly.
A great sense of relief — of release — flooded through me, but I tried not to sound too eager. ‘You must, of course, do as you wish. Indeed, in your place I should do the same.’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Not in the least. Haven’t I just said?’
He drew a deep breath and clapped me on the back, smiling.
Our last evening together was as convivial as those in Hereford had been two weeks earlier. We drank a great deal too much ale, laughed uproariously at the slightest thing, discussed the happenings at Tintern, propounding more and more preposterous theories as to the meaning of it all, and finally helped each other upstairs to the tiny cupboard-like chamber put at our disposal by the landlord, falling into bed fully clothed, without even bothering to remove our boots.
When I awoke next morning, Oliver had already gone.
The room smelled foul, a cross between a brewery and a shithouse, and my mouth tasted pretty much the same. My head was thumping fit to burst, so I staggered down to the courtyard and took my turn at the pump, stripping off with the best of them and persuading a fellow sufferer to scrub my back. Then I tottered up to my room again where I stripped for a second time, shaking the fleas out of my clothes and lamenting the fact that I had no fresh shirt left to put on. However, I cleaned my teeth and combed my hair before breakfasting in the ale-room on a fried herring, oatcakes and small beer.
Thus fortified, I set out to visit Cloister Yard for the second time, hoping that I was early enough to catch Juliette Gerrish at home before she decided to avoid me by going out for the day. But as it happened, this was not her intention. She opened the door herself, neatly dressed, and invited me in.
‘Hallo, Roger,’ she said quietly. ‘I suppose I always knew there would be a day of reckoning.’
I didn’t answer for a moment. I couldn’t. She was obviously extremely ill.
She was still a short woman, of course, and she still, judging by her eyebrows, hid copper-coloured curls beneath her coif. But the plump face, once so full of animation, was thin to the point of emaciation, the bones clearly delineated under the grey-toned skin. The roguish brown eyes, which had once invited with a twinkling glance, were now devoid of any expression except pain. They stared wearily up at me, but seemed to look through, rather than at me.
‘Juliette?’ I said cautiously.
She smiled faintly, but did not trouble herself to answer, merely holding the door a little wider.
‘Come in.’
I stepped past her into the stone-flagged passageway, then stood aside for her to precede me into the dining parlour, where wine and a plate of little sweet cakes had been laid out ready on the table.
Again, that travesty of a smile. ‘I remembered that you were always hungry. Put your pack and cudgel in the corner, then please’ — she indicated a chair with carved arms — ‘sit down.’
I did as she bade me.