I turned my head. ‘You made good time.’
He grinned. ‘Better than you think. I arrived late last night after you were tucked up in bed.’
I snorted. ‘You make it sound comfortable.’
He laughed at that, but then repeated his question. ‘So what did happen to you? I was told you’d legged it in the middle of the night. The cobbler and his wife were very upset. Couldn’t think what they’d done to offend you.’
I hesitated, then told him a version of the truth without saying who I thought was my attacker.
The carter roared at that and slapped me on the knee.‘Reckon that were young Christopher Wiley,’ he gasped, adding in explanation, ‘Betsy’s swain. Crept in to have a bit of a lark with the girl, found you and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Got a hasty temper has young Chris, by all accounts. Don’t know him personal like, but from what Goodwife Shoesmith’ve told me he’s not one to cross.’ He was shaken by another paroxysm of laughter from which he eventually emerged with streaming eyes. ‘I’ll tell the dame next time I see her,’ he offered. ‘Put all right with her and Jacob.’ He gave me a salacious grin. ‘’Course, I can guess why you didn’t bolt the door. So could young Master Wiley, I reckon.’
I said nothing. It was as good an explanation as another and one that would serve my purpose. But I didn’t believe it, not for an instant, particularly when the carter described Christopher Wiley as a slender youth whose figure as well as his face made him a favourite amongst the womenfolk of Keynsham. There had been nothing willowy about the man who had assaulted me.
‘So,’ Joseph Sibley continued, ‘you’re returning to Bristol with me today as we arranged? I could do with the company. Finished your business here, have you?’
I admitted that I had and thankfully accepted his offer. I had no desire to walk the twenty and more miles to Bristol over again, so as soon as I had finished eating I sought out Brother Hilarion and thanked him for his time and patience.
‘And was my history lesson of any use to you?’ he asked, reaching up and bringing my head down to his level so that he could kiss me on the forehead and give me his blessing.
‘Of inestimable value,’ I assured him.
He nodded. ‘And don’t let it be so long before I see you again,’ he chided. ‘I’m an old man now.’
With a sudden rush of affection, and because I myself was growing ever more aware of the passing years, I put my arms around his slight body and gave him a hug.
‘I won’t,’ I promised.
He smiled ironically. ‘You’re a good man, Roger. I know you mean what you say.’ He patted my shoulder. ‘God be with you, my child.’
We reached Bristol in just over two days, passing through the Redcliffe Gate early on Friday morning having spent the night — at my expense, naturally — at an ale-house in the village of Whitchurch.
The night before, Wednesday (or Woden’s Day as many Somerset people still insist on calling it, in memory of the old gods who preceded the coming of Christianity) had, by chance, been passed at the same farmhouse where I had eaten on Sunday. The good-hearted couple had been genuinely pleased to see me again, the husband taking the opportunity to pour into Joseph Sibley’s ear the difficulties of raising his ‘hruther’ or ‘rudder’ beasts — I could see the carter nodding off from sheer boredom as he was told the tale — while the goodwife, in an excess of pride, showed me a new gown she had but just finished making and which was adorned down the front with the carved bone buttons she had purchased from my pack.
As she spoke, recollections of my recent dreams gave me an unpleasant jolt, but try as I would I could still make no sense of them. I stared at the buttons. I fingered them. That they held some significance for me, I was certain, but what that significance was continued to elude me. .
Joseph Sibley lived in Redcliffe, so unloaded me along with my pack and cudgel close to St Thomas’s Church. I thanked him, paid him and then set out with a feeling of relief in the direction of Bristol Bridge. My way took me close to Margaret Walker’s cottage, but I had no intention of breaking my journey to pay her a visit. Home beckoned. I just wanted to get there as soon as possible.
Fate, however, decreed otherwise. As I started to cross the bridge, I realized that my former mother-in-law was just ahead of me and no doubt bound for Small Street. I had no option but to overtake her with as cordial a greeting as I could manage.
The pleasantry was not returned. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ she said grimly. ‘And not before time. It seems to me you’re never around when you’re most needed.’
‘Why?’ I asked uneasily. ‘What’s happened?’
‘You mean apart from your house being broken into?’
‘Broken into again?’ I was aghast. ‘When. . When did this happen?’
‘The day before yesterday, in the morning while Adela was at market with the children. She’d foolishly taken that dog of yours along with her because she had a notion in her head that someone had been trying to poison him.’
‘Poison Hercules?’ I stopped dead in the middle of a crowded High Sreet, staring at Margaret Walker in horror. At the same time, I recalled a conversation with Sir Lionel Despenser in which he had expressed surprise — and, now I came to think of it, concern — that I owned a dog. I remembered telling him how Hercules had been acquired. ‘Is. . Is he all right?’
‘Quite unharmed, thanks to Adela, who kept him indoors after he’d been sick on two occasions. Although considering what that animal scavenges from the drains, why she thought — ’ Here Margaret broke off and seized my arm, urging me forward. ‘For the sweet Lord’s sake shift yourself, Roger! You’re getting in everyone’s way standing there like a great booby with your mouth half-open! Besides, you’ve a bigger worry than that awaiting you.’
‘Was anything stolen from the house?’ I asked as we began to move, her last words not sinking in for the moment.
‘Adela says not, but of course it hasn’t stopped Dick Manifold from being round there every five minutes. If you’ll take my advice my lad, you want to keep your eye on him.’
‘I do, believe me. . What did you mean, a bigger worry?’
My quondam mother-in-law snorted. ‘That child’s turned up again. He’s bigger now, about ten or eleven months I should say, and he’s not with the woman who brought him here first, before you came home in April.’
‘What child?’ I demanded. But I knew perfectly well what child. I was simply playing for time.
We had by now reached the High Cross and I came to a halt in its shadow. Margaret Walker stood still perforce and turned to face me. ‘The child that woman claimed was yours. Only now it seems the story’s changed. It appears that after all the boy is not yours, only has some sort of claim on you.’ She gave another snort. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense. I told Adela that if this present woman shows up again to send her away with a flea in her ear. I don’t know what your connection is with that creature in Gloucester, and I don’t want to know, but it’s obvious she’s trying to force this child on you by one means or another. She’s afraid to come here herself for fear of coming face-to-face with you, so she’s persuaded her friend to do the deed for her.’
If that were only the case, I thought with a sinking heart, how much simpler things would be. It was apparent to me that Juliette Gerrish had died and that Jane Spicer, according to her promise, had brought Luke to Bristol in an effort to persuade me to take my half-nephew into my family and raise him as my own. I groaned inwardly. I could foresee storm clouds ahead.
We walked down Small Street, in silence on my part but with Margaret giving me a great deal of advice to which I paid not the slightest attention. Indeed, most of it I didn’t even listen to, one half of my mind being preoccupied with the break-in and what it meant, and the other with my responsibility to my half-brother’s child and how I was going to persuade Adela that we had no choice but to shelter the poor little mite.