‘I’m a man now,’ he announced with simple pride. ‘I have a knife. If that man tries to rob our house again, I shall stick it into him. Straight through his belly button.’
Everyone laughed but me. I was too busy trying to work out why his words bothered me; what chord they had struck in my mind. It seemed to me afterwards that I had very nearly had the answer when a furious knocking on the street door made me jump almost out of my skin and drove all such thoughts from my head. Two minutes later, Elizabeth, who had gone to the door to admit the caller, returned to the kitchen with Richard Manifold in tow.
I groaned. He took no notice.
‘Roger,’ he said, at his most officious, ‘you must accompany me to the bridewell at once.’
‘Well, I won’t,’ I replied mutinously. ‘I’m eating my dinner.’
‘Now,’ was the uncompromising answer. ‘Orders of the sheriff.’
I threw down my knife. ‘Why?’ I demanded pettishly.
‘An old beggar has been murdered in Pit Hay Lane. We’ve arrested a man, another old beggar, who was caught red-handed bending over the body.’
‘So?’
‘So this second beggar insists on speaking to you. Absolutely insists on it. And you haven’t forgotten what I was telling you the other day; the rumour that an agent of the king might be here in disguise?’ I gave a start. I had forgotten it. ‘The sheriff thinks I’m being overzealous. He says this man couldn’t possibly be a royal officer. But I thought it would be as well to be certain.’
FOURTEEN
He was sitting — perched would perhaps be a better word — on a narrow stone ledge beneath a tiny barred window through which the pallid November daylight struggled to make any impression. A rush light provided almost no illumination, and I had to wait for my eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom before viewing the huddled figure with any clarity.
He was a small man dressed in an ancient and very patched tunic, torn hose, rubbed shoes, with several weeks’ growth of beard adorning his chin, long greasy hair and a filthy eye-patch over the left eye. The right regarded me malevolently.
I started to shake with laughter.
The prisoner snatched off the eye-patch and threw it to the floor.
‘Don’t just stand there cackling like a demented peahen!’ he yelled. ‘Tell this idiot who I am.’
When, finally, I could command my voice, I turned to Richard Manifold, who was gloomily regarding the pair of us. ‘Hard as you may find it to believe,’ I gasped, ‘this gentleman is the King’s Spymaster General, one Timothy Plummer.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Of course he’s fucking sure, you dolt!’ Timothy bounced to his feet and shook his fist under the other man’s nose, something I’d never seen anyone actually do before. ‘Fetch the sheriff here immediately so that Master Chapman can identify me in front of His Honour. Go on! Shoo!’
Richard departed, a sullen look of resignation on his face. Timothy resumed his seat and I sat down beside him.
I said, ‘I don’t think they do, you know.’
‘Who? Who don’t do what?’ my companion snapped.
‘Peahens. I don’t think they cackle.’
There was a pregnant silence. ‘Why are we talking about peahens?’ Timothy asked, dangerously quiet.
‘You were. You said. .’
‘Shut up! Shut up, you great oaf! I suppose you think that’s humorous? Well, it isn’t!’ Timothy was on his feet again, fairly dancing with temper. ‘I just want to get out of here then come home with you and have a good wash while you go and collect my saddle-bags from the Full Moon Inn. I feel certain your goodwife will find me something to eat, even if it’s only bread and cheese, and after that we can talk. Perhaps you can tell me what’s going on in this benighted town.’
‘There’s nothing like inviting yourself! And I’m not your errand boy,’ I rebuked him. ‘And what about this secret mission that you’re on?’
‘I can’t continue with that now, can I? Not now half of Bristol knows my real identity.’
This, of course, was a total exaggeration, but I guessed he was glad of an excuse to rid himself of a disguise which had begun to irk him and which he saw as demeaning to his dignity. I reflected that it must be a very important and delicate matter to have made him undertake it himself in the first place.
‘All right,’ I conceded, ‘provided Adela raises no objection and understands that you’re not going to hale me off to London again at any minute.’ Timothy made a dismissive gesture. ‘In that case, I’ll do as you ask.’ He was moved to grasp my hand, which left it smelling strongly of decaying fish. I wrinkled my nose. ‘I suppose you know you stink to high heaven?’
It must have been well into the afternoon and getting on for suppertime before Timothy and I were at last able to settle down in the parlour for our talk.
It had taken the sheriff a good hour or more to put in an appearance at the bridewell (he was, as he was careful to point out, a very busy man), by which time my companion was at boiling point. It had taken all the tact of which I was capable to prevent him from insulting a civic dignitary and being kept in prison for contempt. However, I finally managed to convince the sheriff that this was indeed the king’s Spymaster General and that His Highness would be most displeased if he were mistreated in any way. In the end, the pair were slapping each other on the back and enjoying a laugh at Timothy’s unprepossessing appearance, and the latter was promising to pay a visit to both the mayor and the sheriff on the morrow to make them free of anything they desired to know.
‘But not of anything I don’t desire them to know,’ Timothy said later, stretching his feet towards the fire burning on the hearth.
Adela’s goodwill had been more difficult to win, and it had only been repeated assurances on my part that I was not to be dragged off to the capital at a moment’s notice that had finally persuaded her to let Timothy use the pump and some of her carefully hoarded best white soap while I visited the Full Moon Inn to collect his saddle-bags. She had also fed him a makeshift meal of bread, goat’s milk cheese and onions and promised him a share of our supper. But she refused to let him stay for the night.
‘Now that he’s clean and shaved, he can go back to the inn.’
I didn’t blame her. It would have meant Adam sleeping with Nicholas, and that always led to trouble.
‘Right,’ Timothy said, looking much more like himself in a decent blue tunic and hose and with a chin and upper lip free of hair, ‘what do you know of what’s going on in this town? And don’t tell me “nothing” because I shan’t believe you. There’s no one else I know who has your talent for getting mixed up in other people’s business. If there’s any trouble, you’re sure to find yourself in the thick of it.’
I was in half a mind to resent his remarks, but decided it would be a waste of effort to do so. I was not, however, going to allow him the ordering of the conversation.
‘Tell me what you’re doing here first.’
He hesitated briefly, then decided to comply. ‘One of our best spies at the Breton court sent back a report that the Tudor is growing short of money. Duke Francis is facing war with France — the French nobles are flexing their muscles now that Louis is no longer alive to restrain them; the new king is too young to hold them in check — and therefore is unable to give the same generous aid to Henry. The latter’s attempted invasion during the recent rebellion failed lamentably as you probably know, but even so, mercenaries still need paying, win or lose. But our man wrote that there was a rumour — indeed, more than a rumour — in circles close to the Tudor of the possible windfall of a vast sum of money coming his way. And the source of this money was here, in Bristol. His Grace the king was perturbed by this story as you can well imagine.’