[Stephen Attebrook 11] - Missing

by Jason Vail

  “Well done, Sir Guy,” Edward said.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Guy said. “Although it was Attebrook’s work that enabled us to save the bridge.”

  “Attebrook, yes,” Edward said. “You’ve proven yourself to be useful after all. You’ll be joining me, then?”

  “Joining you?” Stephen asked cautiously. “You mean, the army?”

  “What did you think I meant?” Edward asked, testily.

  “I would, of course, but first I must ask a favor,” Stephen said.

  “A favor?” Edward’s head drew back and his mouth turned down as if he had encountered a bad smell. “That depends on the favor.”

  “I need four horses,” Stephen said. “I lost my horses at Worcester. And a month’s delay in joining the army.” It was impossible to defy Edward if he demanded Stephen’s attendance, but perhaps he could put it off.

  “Why?” Edward demanded.

  “I’ve urgent business to attend to,” Stephen said. “Personal business.”

  “Personal business?” Edward repeated.

  “That’s what brought me here in the first place,” Stephen said.

  Stephen was concerned that Edward might inquire further into the details of this personal business, which he would rather not discuss. Edward could regard trying to recover the children of a crippled man of no consequence, not worthy of the postponement Stephen had requested.

  But Edward smiled thinly. “I hope this business of yours is important enough. But you’ve earned the horses by what you’ve done.” He turned to Roger Mortimer. “My lord, could you provide Attebrook with four horses? You’ve some to spare and I do not at the moment.”

  “Of course, my lord,” Roger said.

  “Good,” Edward said. “Now, Sir Guy, get the men working on the bridge. I want it ready for the army to cross with all our horses and baggage by tonight.”

  Chapter 16

  The line of carts, wagons and packhorses waiting to get into Gloucester stretched more than a hundred yards from South Gate when Stephen reached it from the army camp south of town. It was not moving.

  Stephen asked a cart driver at the back of the queue if there was a hold up and got the answer that no one had moved in more than half an hour and he had no idea why. Delays by themselves were not unusual. It often took a lot of time to get into a walled town, and now that hostilities had suspended, at least temporarily, there was a great clamor of traffic to get in and out, with the resulting jams.

  He considered what to do now. His plan had been to follow a wagon or cart through the gate, pretending to be a workman accompanying it. He was dressed as such a working man, in a peasant’s plain black woolen coat with wooden buttons, a brown woolen tunic under it and the same worn blue stockings he had obtained at Kempsey. He thought this plan would avoid questions about what his business might be, since members of Edward’s army were not yet allowed in and would be arrested if they tried.

  Much had changed in the last few days.

  The combined forces of Henry de Montfort and Robert Ferrers entered the town at the North Gate to reinforce Giffard, probably with the intention of making another assault on the castle. So, it was not difficult to move Edward’s army across the repaired bridge after nightfall following the fire boat attack to the fields south of town. Edward ordered the main body to make camp in the pasture west of Saint Owen’s Church, while a large contingent formed up where the city wall turned northeast so Montfort and Ferrers would have to cut their way through that force in order to attack the camp and to block any sortie from South Gate. The army had a ready escape route, if one was needed, down Bristowes Way.

  The next morning, Edward and Roger Mortimer rode out to Montfort and Ferrers and suggested they reach a truce. Montfort and Ferrers, joined by Giffard, wanted conditions to any such truce. These could not be easily agreed upon, so a tent was erected in the middle of Barton Street as a place for further discussions, and, at Edward’s suggestion, a request was sent to Walter de Cantiloupe, bishop of Worcester, to mediate the dispute.

  It would take a few days for the bishop to appear, so a de facto truce fell into place. At the advent of the fighting, the town gates had been closed and townspeople had not been able to get any food in or send waste out. The town depended on daily deliveries of food from the countryside, and the situation was rendered more acute by the fact that Giffard’s army appropriated much of the supplies so that after more than a week, people were going hungry. The cessation of fighting led to the gates being thrown open and traffic restored for the time being, at least.

  A peddler tottering under a pack larger than he was passed where Stephen was standing with the teamsters of a wagon delivering pickled eels in large barrels. You could tell the barrels contained eels because a stylized eel was etched on every barrel.

  “What’s the hold up?” one of the teamsters called to the peddler.

  The peddler wheezed and puffed and without pausing, since that might have meant the toppling of his pack, gasped, “Hay wagon tipped over in the gate. You won’t likely get in until tomorrow!”

  The leader of the teamsters cursed. He rose. “I’m going for a look.”

  Stephen followed the leader, at least to see if what the peddler reported was true and to get an estimate of the length of the delay.

  When Stephen reached the South Gate, the reason for the delay was clear. One of the wheels of the hay wagon had broken and the wagon had tipped on its side within the gate passage, spilling out the hay and filling the passage completely so that even a man on foot had trouble getting in or out. A gang was clearing away the hay by hand and carrying it inside the town where another wagon, just visible around the hay pile, waited to take it to its destination.

  “I don’t reckon it will be tomorrow, but it’ll be another hour at least,” the teamster leader said as much to himself as to Stephen, whom he had no reason to speak to, anyway.

  The teamster turned back to his wagon, but Stephen crossed the bridge to the gate.

  One of the guards — too well armed to be a city warden — stepped in Stephen’s way. The guard gave Stephen the up and down, his downturned mouth suggesting he did not like what he saw. But that was probably because he was one of Giffard’s soldiers and didn’t like this duty and as a matter of habit didn’t like the people he confronted unless they were gentle folk, when it would be all smiles and bows and “my lords” and “my ladies.”

  “State your business,” the guard said.

  “They said I was to come and help clear up the mess,” Stephen said. He hoped that the guard would not ask who “they” were. Stephen hadn’t thought that far ahead; he was improvising. That was a good way to be caught out, but it would have to do.

  The guard squinted and spit. “You forgot your pitchfork.”

  “Not all of us are fortunate enough to own a pitchfork.”

  The guard glanced at the workers clearing the hay pile. Not all of them had pitchforks.

  “Come ahead,” he said.

  Stephen entered the passage, grasped a big armful of hay and staggered through the only available passage to the other wagon, grateful that this was hay and not manure. He tossed his load into the other wagon and glanced back at the guard who’d confronted him. That fellow’s back was to Stephen. He took this as permission to head deeper into town.

  Stephen had been to Gloucester several times, but he didn’t know where the King’s Board was located. However, an inquiry through the open window of a hatter’s shop next to the town stocks, one of the few shops doing business, directed him around the corner and down West Gate Street.

  “You couldn’t miss it if you were blind,” the hatter said while his customer, a burgess’ wife, turned to a maid for money. “It’s beyond the church under the sign of a butter churn.”

  How a blind person would spot a butter churn sign was not discussed.

  “You’re glad to be back in business, I expect,” Stephen said.

  The hatter accepted the maid’s money,
and passed a pill hat embroidered with silver thread across the sill. The woman turned away and flounced toward South Gate, her three maids following like a string of ducklings.

  The hatter leaned out the window and glanced up and down the street. “It’s been bad. Lucky I wasn’t arrested with so many others. This is the first day I’ve been able to open up and that was my first sale. You sure you don’t want anything? I’ve a good assortment of wool caps. You could use a new one.”

  Stephen didn’t think that was true. His present cap, a festive though faded blue, was thick and warm and without any holes.

  “I’m fine for now,” he said. “But if I do need a new one, I’ll come to you.”

  The hatter smiled. He no more believed that than Stephen had the claim about needing a new cap.

  The King’s Board was where it was supposed to be behind the Saint Mary of Grace Church, a little chapel which occupied the middle of Westgate Street, but the Duck was nowhere in sight. It should have been easily identified by a sign of its own, but there was no indication of a placard of a duck on either side of the street as far as Stephen could see. As he searched, however, he noticed that many signs were missing, and several shops had their window shutters stove in and doors knocked off the hinges, damage he had not seen on South Gate Street. Most of the remainder of the shops in view were closed. Stephen would have asked directions at the King’s Board, which was nothing more than a wooden porch with a roof over it where the sellers could do business whatever the weather, but it was deserted, except for three men armed with cudgels and daggers. They were tough-looking, but did not appear to be soldiers. They slouched on benches, watching people go by.

  The toughs eyed Stephen with suspicion, since he was just standing there looking around.

  “What’s your business here?” one demanded.

  “Who’s asking?” Stephen asked.

  “We’re bailiffs, like,” the tough said.

  “Like?”

  “We’re helping keep order. During the present hostilities, you know.”

  “I see,” Stephen said. That meant that their exercise of power was unsanctioned, taking advantage of the troubles for personal advantage. “I’m looking for the Duck.”

  “You’re looking at it.” The tough gestured toward one of the shops with shattered window shutters and smashed door. “You’re not from around here, are you,” the tough said, narrowing his eyes the way a mastiff does before biting.

  “From Bristol. Came in the wagon load of pickled eels,” Stephen said, recalling the eel wagon on the road.

  “Pickled eels!” the soldier laughed. “And where are those pickled eels?”

  “Been delivered. Now I need a drink. I heard that the Duck is a good place for that.”

  “It was. I doubt you’ll find much drink there now.”

  “What happened?” Stephen asked.

  “The owner is a royalist.” The man’s eyes narrowed again. “But you’ll find other pleasures there than drink, if you’ve a mind to enjoy them.”

  “Such as what?” Stephen asked.

  “There are a few women of the night there who can give you a good time, for the right price, of course.”

  Stephen regarded the ruined doorway to the Duck and pulled his chin as if he was considering this notion. The tough rubbed his fingers together, a gesture that Stephen did not miss.

  “Are these ladies working for you, now?”

  “We’ve made an arrangement with them,” the tough said.

  He started toward the Duck. The tough grasped his elbow and held out a palm.

  “Payment first,” the soldier said.

  “How do I know there’s really whores there?” Stephen said, disengaging from the soldier’s grasp. “I’ll see them first before I part with a farthing.”

  “Fair enough. Come on.”

  There were no whores visible in the Duck, and Stephen had to wait until one finished with a customer and had time for him.

  The interior was a shambles; tables were overturned, some were broken up into random planks and boards, most of the barrels behind the bar had been carried off, though a few had been smashed, their staves like the curled ribs of dead animals in the mire and muck.

  A few benches had been rescued and set by a hearth which held no fire, only the remains of one, a pile of ash and partly burned logs.

  Stephen took a seat on the bench while the tough climbed the stairs. Stephen heard voices above his head, the words muffled. Presently, the tough came down with another man, followed by a red-haired woman whose wrinkled, sunken lips indicated that her mouth was free of teeth. She was younger than Stephen but looked older, with a lined, weather-ravaged face.

  “Maisie will take you know,” the soldier said.

  “This way,” Maisie said, revealing that she in fact had at least two teeth. “Don’t drag your heels.”

  The gang member held out his hand again for payment at the foot of the stairs.

  “I pay him?” Stephen asked Maisie.

  She sighed and nodded, a confession that this arrangement probably was not voluntary on the whores’ part, but whores were often little more than the slaves of tavernkeepers, anyway.

  Stephen dropped shards of coins in the tough’s hand and followed Maise to a first-floor chamber. He hesitated at the door, for the room was dark inside. A suspicion shot through his mind that this might be an ambush; knocking customers over the head and emptying their purses was not an uncommon thing, and with greedy toughs involved, he wouldn’t be surprised if that was on the menu.

  Maisie saw his hesitation and sat on the bed. “There’s no one behind the door, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “The notion did cross my mind.”

  She smiled, but the dark concealed the horror that was her mouth. “Well, you look like the sort who can handle yourself. So, I don’t think they’d try.”

  To show her good faith, she rose and pushed the door open so it touched the wall and hid no one lying in ambush. “There you go. That better?”

  “Much.”

  Stephen shut the door and crossed to the window, which overlooked the street. He pushed the shutter open to admit some light.

  “Want to see my charms, do you?” Maisie asked. She started to pull up her skirt.

  “You can stop,” Stephen said.

  “You don’t want the full treatment?” Maisie shrugged. “Just the mouth, then?”

  “Neither one. I’d like some information.”

  “You some kind of spy?”

  “If I was a spy, would I be asking you for information?”

  “You don’t know what I know. Girls like us, we hear a lot.”

  “I expect you do. No, I’m not interested in the war. I’m looking for someone. I understand he’s a regular here.”

  Maisie put her hands in her lap. “Well, you’ve paid for my time. Ask away.”

  Stephen handed her an additional halfpence to ensure a loose tongue. “The man’s name is Morecok. Have you heard of him?”

  “Oh, yeah. Everyone in town knows Abelard Morecok.”

  “He’s an important man, is he?”

  “He likes to think so. He did a turn as town bailiff a couple of years ago.”

  Stephen took that to mean that Gloucester was governed like many English towns, with a senior official at the head called either the bailiff or the reeve. The post usually lasted only a year or two before it was surrendered to another man in a rotation among the richest or most influential, although one might hold the position for many years.

  “Where can I find him?”

  Maise snorted. “In gaol.”

  “In gaol?” Stephen asked, surprised.

  “He’s locked up at the North Gate with all the other major supporters of king. Like Sandre.”

  “Who’s Sandre?”

  “The owner of this place. Haven’t you noticed how busted up it is?”

  “What happened?”

  “Lord Giffard got in with the help of the barons’ s
upporters in the town. The price of their cooperation was the imprisonment of those most vocal supporters of the king and the plundering of their property. Morecok is for the king and has a good bit of property, so they snapped him up first thing.”

  Stephen strode toward the door.

  “That’s all?” Maisie asked.

  “I think so. No, wait! Do you remember a time when Morecok bought two boys? About thirteen and seven?”

  It was Maisie’s turn to look surprised. “I do! Handsome little fellows.” She frowned. “Their mother was rubbish. A greedy bitch. Morecok made her an offer and, poof! She accepted. I think she thought the boys got in her way. I’ve three wee ones myself, and I’d open a vein before I sold a single one.”

  “How do you know Megge?”

  “She worked here for a time.” Seeing the look on Stephen’s face, Maisie added, “Not as one of our company. She was a serving maid. She gave it away for free, too, so you can imagine, she wasn’t too popular among us working girls.”

  “What happened to the boys?”

  “Morecok sold them down the river.”

  “Do you know where?”

  Maisie shook her head. “No. It could have been Chepstow, but then again, it could have been Bristol. All I know is he took them down river in one of his boats.”

  “He has boats?”

  “That’s his business, carrying cargo on the rivers. Why do you care about those boys?” Maisie asked. “They yours?”

  “Their father is my friend. I’m trying to get them back.”

  Stephen reached for the door latch.

  “You might want to wait a little,” Maisie said. “That took no time at all. They’ll make fun of you on the way out if you go now.”

  Chapter 17

  Gate towers were a common location for a town’s gaol. The officials at Ludlow had chosen a similar place, housing most miscreants within Galdeford Gate. Sometimes prisoners were dropped in pits dug beneath one of the flanking towers; sometimes they were locked up on one of the upper floors. Where you went usually depended on your crime or whether you could afford the bribe to spare you from the pit, which was the least popular spot. Stephen had personal experience with the unpleasantness of a tower pit, having spent some time in one at Hereford Castle following an unfounded accusation of murder.