‘And do you and Master Heathersett connect these sightings with events at Tintern Abbey?’ I asked abruptly.
‘You think Geoffrey and I are making them up,’ Henry Callowhill accused me. ‘You think we’re behaving like a couple of hysterical women.’
I did, if I were honest, but I wasn’t going to admit it.
We had, by this time, drawn abreast of the opening to St Mary le Port Street. I was struck with a sudden inspiration. ‘Why don’t you pay Master Foliot a visit and ask if he’s noticed any strangers answering to your description anywhere in his vicinity?’
Henry Callowhill paused yet again, mulling over this suggestion. ‘Gilbert won’t be in his shop now,’ he hedged. ‘It’s after curfew. He’ll be at home in St Peter’s Street.’
‘I feel sure he won’t mind a visit from an old friend,’ I encouraged him.
Still the wine merchant hesitated. ‘Will you come with me?’ he asked after further cogitation.
I could see his motive for the invitation. Henry Callowhill was a man who liked to be thought well of by everyone, but particularly by someone such as the goldsmith, whom he plainly revered and whose good opinion he set much store by. Why this should be so I had no idea, for in terms of wealth and social standing there was little to choose between them. Nevertheless, my companion was obviously lacking in the self-confidence his friend enjoyed and was afraid of appearing a fool in the other man’s eyes. If I were with him he could, if he were clever enough, make it seem as if I was the one plagued by silly fancies. He could say with perfect truth that I was the one who had proposed the visit.
I thought things over, but for less time than it takes to tell, then nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll come with you,’ I agreed.
The goldsmith’s opinion mattered nothing to me. He was welcome to think me a fool if he liked, but somehow I didn’t think he would. He struck me as a shrewd man who regarded the world with a sapient eye and was perfectly well aware of his many friends’ faults and foibles. Indeed, during the days we had all spent together in Wales I had, on occasions, caught him looking at his companions with something akin to barely concealed intolerance at best, outright contempt at worst. If I were honest, I wasn’t sure that I really liked the goldsmith, and yet there was something about him that commanded my admiration: a decisiveness, an ability to make the best of any situation, but with, deep down, a sense of the futility of life. I felt he was all too aware of the stupidity of hopes and dreams in the short span of time allotted to us, but that wasn’t going to stop him trying to fulfil his aspirations. Whatever they were.
Henry Callowhill and I turned into St Mary le Port Street much to the annoyance of Hercules who, having sensed that we were on the road home, deeply resented this diversion. He began to snuffle and whine, wriggling and squirming beneath my arm in an effort to regain his freedom.
‘Quiet!’ I commanded him. He licked my face.
The shops on either side of us were now boarded up, but candle- and lamplight glowed through the chinks of the shutters in the upper storeys. Only one was shrouded in complete darkness and that was the goldsmith’s.
‘Doesn’t it worry Master Foliot to leave his wares unattended at night, in an empty building?’ I asked as we drew to a halt and surveyed the house from the opposite side of the street.
‘Oh, as to that,’ my companion replied, ‘I believe he had a special underground strong room built — in addition, that is, to the cellars — before he moved to St Peter’s Street. The entrance and how to open it is known only to him.’
‘And to the workmen who made it,’ I added.
‘Yes, yes, of course. But as I understand it, they weren’t local men. Not from the town, at least. They were men of that Keynsham friend of Gilbert’s, Sir Lionel Despenser.’
‘Ah!’ I said. ‘Him! I slept at his house last night.’
‘You know Sir Lionel?’ The wine merchant was plainly curious. For a pedlar, I must seem to him to know a great many people who should be far above my reach. On the other hand, if he shared the goldsmith’s mistaken belief that I was in the king’s employ his curiosity extended only to finding out what my business could be with the knight. I had no intention of disappointing him.
‘I know nothing of Sir Lionel himself. I went to Keynsham merely to deliver a message to his head groom, Walter Gurney, from a lady of his acquaintance in Gloucester. Unfortunately, I got there only to discover that Master Gurney had run away, at the same time stealing one of Sir Lionel’s most valuable horses.’
‘How very odd!’ Henry Callowhill made to walk on, then stopped again beneath an overhead torch, wrinkling his brow. ‘You say this man’s name was Gurney?’
‘Walter Gurney, yes. Why?’
The brow wrinkled even more. ‘I don’t really know. But there’s something about the coupling of the two names. . Despenser. . Gurney. .’ There was a pause while the merchant wrestled with his thoughts. In the end, however, he shook his head. ‘No, it’s no good. Somehow or another I feel there is a connection, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it is. Perhaps it’s just in my imagination.’
‘Perhaps,’ I agreed.
We moved on at last, and not before time. It had grown very chilly standing there in the street. I could feel Hercules shivering. But we had hardly taken three steps when the wine merchant stopped yet again, grasping my arm. ‘Somebody’s up there! In the upper-floor room over the shop. I’m sure I saw a flicker of light through a chink in the shutters.’
I stared hard at the first-storey window, but could see nothing. Then I walked across the cobbles, subjecting the whole front of the house to close scrutiny. Hercules whined suddenly and his ears went up.
‘What’s the matter?’ I hissed.
He gave a little bark and his whole body tensed, but a moment later, a cat sauntered out of the narrow alleyway between the goldsmith’s shop and its neighbour. I was caught unawares and, before I could stop him, Hercules, breathing fire and slaughter, had wriggled free of my grasp and hurled himself in the direction of the unsuspecting interloper who dived back into the alleyway and was soon swallowed up by the shadows.
Cursing fluently, I made a lunge at the dog, just managing to grab him at the expense of a twisted ankle and a grazed hand. He protested violently, but I was angry enough to clip him across the nose, for which indignity he tried first to bite me before finally settling down again under my arm, but emitting a series of little growls just to let me know of his displeasure.
‘There’s no one there,’ I said, returning to Henry Callowhill. ‘You probably saw a reflection of the torchlight.’
He laughed shortly. ‘Even if there was someone there, he isn’t going to show himself now after all that commotion.’
‘There was no one there, I tell you. It was your imagination.’ I felt certain that I was right and that it had been nothing more than a trick of the light.
We proceeded on up the street and into St Peter’s Street, where the bells of St Peter’s Church were just beginning to toll for Vespers.
There were lights in the ground-floor windows of Gilbert Foliot’s imposing house and the wall cressets had been lit. Henry Callowhill raised his hand and knocked on the door, which was answered after a brief delay by the goldsmith’s housekeeper, Mistress Margery Dawes, who also acted as a companion to Ursula. As I think I mentioned somewhere earlier, she was a cousin of sorts to Lawyer Heathersett and had his slightly protuberant eyes, although that was the only real likeness. She was a big, full-bosomed creature, not in the first flush of youth, but not old enough, either, to have lost completely the romantic yearnings of her girlhood. It was generally accepted that she had connived at the secret meetings between Ursula and young Peter Noakes, even if she had not actively encouraged them.
‘Yes?’ she queried, peering at us short-sightedly.