by Ann Swinfen
There was a gasp from the crowd, and Rafe pressed back against my knees, seizing a fistful of my cotte for safety. Standing upright, the bear was nearly eight feet tall, towering over both the man and the boy. Somehow he seemed to grow when he stood thus, almost like a man, and I would have been glad to back away myself, but I did not want to alarm the children.
Slowly the bear began to shuffle around the circle, more or less keeping time with the music. When he slowed, the man and the boy slowed their music, so that the bear seemed somewhat cleverer than he was. Nevertheless, it must take some hard work to train such a fierce, such a large and dangerous creature to do your bidding. I have seen bears who were half-starved and ill-used, but this animal looked well enough.
The performance did not last long. The music came to an end, the bear sank down on to his four paws, then sat, almost like a domestic dog, scratching and parting his fur, searching for fleas. There was a collective sigh of pleasure from the audience, and clapping, and the boy began to come round, as the woman acrobat had done, with his hat for coins.
Alysoun looked relieved, but Rafe was distressed.
‘Papa,’ he said, ‘aren’t they going to give the bear anything? We always give Rowan something when she learns a new trick.’
‘Perhaps when they are back in their tent,’ I said.
When the youth reached us, Rafe went up to him boldly, holding out the gingerbread which Alice had given him. It was somewhat squashed from being clutched tight during the performance, but still whole.
‘Please,’ Rafe said to the youth, ‘will you give this to the bear, from me?’
The youth looked surprised, then he grinned, not unkindly.
‘Aye, give it here. Now watch!’
He flung the gingerbread high in the air, so that it dropped down in front of the bear, who caught it neatly and began to eat it with every sign of pleasure.
‘Did you see!’ Rafe cried. ‘He likes my gingerbread!’
That raised some smiles from the people standing near, and Alysoun leaned toward Rafe. ‘You can have half of mine,’ she whispered.
The bear was led away to the showman’s tent and the crowd began to disperse.
‘Time we went home,’ I said, and we headed back toward the main fairground.
By the time we had passed through the South Gate and started up Fish Street, Rafe was stumbling with tiredness, so I took him up onto my back.
‘That was kind of you,’ I said the Alysoun, ‘to give Rafe half your gingerbread.’
She smiled. ‘I liked to see the bear eating the gingerbread, but it was only fair that Rafe should have a share too.’
Rafe’s head drooped on to my shoulder and he whispered in my ear.
‘When I grow up, Papa, I am going to have a bear.’
Chapter Nine
The following morning one of the lay servants from the priory brought me a note from Canon Aubery, saying that Canon Basing, the cellarer, was much recovered and sitting up in bed, if I still wished to speak to him about the French vintners. I could not go at once, for Lady Amilia had sent one of her waiting women with an order for another book. Although I could not open the shop to sell any goods, I supposed I might discuss the matter without breaking the terms of the St Frideswide’s Fair charter.
‘My lady wishes to have a book of troubadour songs,’ the woman said. ‘Words and music both, but not one of your plain music books, such as common folk use. It must be illuminated and gilded, like the book of hours you made for her. Bound in matching leather. And you must use the same scrivener. Here are her instructions.’
She laid a sheet of parchment in front of me, on which Lady Amilia had set out her demands in some detail. I did not greatly care to be ordered about like one of her lesser servants, but we humble shopkeepers must maintain a polite demeanour to our rich customers, however much our hearts rebel.
I nodded and smiled and agreed that all should be made as requested. Emma, I thought, would enjoy the task, for setting out the words and music together requires some skill. To find enough troubadour songs to make up an entire book would need some time and effort on my part. I hoped, also, that Henry Stalbroke would remember how he had made up that unique purple dye for the cover of the book of hours. I knew that he rarely wrote such things down, but experimented with his colours until he found what satisfied him. And the final result could also be affected by the underlying leather. Still, we would all do our best.
The waiting woman was inclined to linger, especially when Margaret brought her spiced ale and a plate of comfits. I daresay she was glad of an excuse to absent herself from Lady Amilia’s demands for a while. She was gone at last.
‘Who is minding your booth today?’ I asked Margaret, when she came to clear away the ale cup and the plate, on which not so much as a crumb remained.
‘Maud and Beatrice today. Emma and I tomorrow, although the others will come at the end of the fair, to clear all away. Roger has said he will bring Mary’s handcart and pull it home for us.’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘I am glad Roger is proving a help to you.’
‘Aye, he was a somewhat surly lad when he first came to work for you, but he has grown up of late.’
‘He has.’ I thought for a moment. ‘So Emma is not working today. Do you think she would enjoy seeing the play? Have you heard anything of them, the players, in the gossip going about the fair?’
‘These wandering players,’ she said, ‘they are often a dirty, scurrilous lot, but ’tis said this group are decent folk, as decent as such vagabonds could ever be. They are under the protection of some lord’s household. And their plays are said to be moral pieces, not some low stuff, meant for drunken louts reeling out from a tavern.’
I smiled. That was probably the highest praise that could be extracted from Margaret for a group of people she naturally regarded with suspicion – rootless wanderers, with no settled home, no parish church, no neighbours able to recount the life histories of their grandparents.
‘Well, I have not seen a play since last year, when that group came to the Mitre. Their tale was taken from the Bible, and performed respectfully. ’Tis a pity we have no guild plays here in Oxford, as they do in Coventry. Surely what Coventry can do, Oxford could do! I should like to see some of our respectable burgesses portraying Adam and Eve in the Garden, or contriving an Ark for Noah.’
I rubbed my chin. ‘The boat builders over by the castle could contrive something, I am sure.’
Margaret laughed. ‘Tease how you will, Nicholas. Did you not tell me the students sometimes put together a play? Though perhaps not Adam and Eve.’
‘If they did, they would prefer a fairer Eve than one of their fellow students in a wig of frayed rope, and a gown of felt fig leaves. A student play would never match what true players can perform. I shall find out which piece they are to give us this day and ask Emma if she would care to see it. After a year in the nunnery, she is starved of the sort of entertainment youth craves. And you have all worked hard these last days.’
‘So as a kindly uncle, you will take the girl to the play?’
‘Indeed,’ I said with dignity.
With a knowing smile, she returned to her cooking.
At the priory, I sought out Canon Aubery first. He was sitting in the parlour of the prior’s house with another canon, whom I had last seen acting as infirmarian, and who was introduced to me as Canon Pultney.
‘I have no skills in physic,’ he said with a rueful smile, ‘and have happily handed over my duties to my predecessor. However, I used to assist our former prior with his accounts. Poor man! He was often in a fine muddle. Canon Aubery and I have put our heads together and are attempting to make some sense of de Hungerford’s account books, but I fear we are not making much progress.’
Aubery sighed. ‘It seems they have been deliberately set out to confuse, but with all the monies of the fair to account for, after it ends tomorrow, we feel we must make a start somewhere.’
‘I will not interr
upt you,’ I said. ‘I have no love for columns of figures myself. I came only to ask whether Canon Basing is still well enough to see me.’
‘Indeed he is,’ Canon Pultney said. ‘He is chafing to quit his bed, but we feel he had best stay there another day. Everything is in hand for the prince’s entertainment, so he need not fret. And the few other noble guests who were staying here for the duration of the fair have taken themselves off to the Mitre after the disturbance of the other night.’
‘And small blame to them,’ Canon Aubery said.
‘But the prince stays? I said.
They both laughed.
‘More determined than ever,’ Canon Aubery said. ‘It seems his only regret is that he was unable to join the battle.’
At the door, I turned back.
‘And where is de Hungerford now?’
‘Still locked in his bedchamber,’ Canon Aubery said, ‘with two of the sheriff’s men to guard him. And two more outside. Last night he tried to climb out through the window, so they are taking no chances.’
I shook my head. It seemed to me that de Hungerford would have been better suited to life as a mercenary soldier than as a senior man of the Church, though perhaps the ease and comfort of the ecclesiastical world was more to his taste than the rough soldier’s life.
Leaving them to their labours, I made my way to the infirmary. Canon Basing was indeed sitting up, looking curiously like a layman in his night shift, but a layman who had taken on the fashions of some of the crusaders returning from the East, for his head was swathed in a turban of bandages like a very Saracen. I pulled a stool up to his bed.
‘How do you find yourself this morning?’ I asked.
‘I’ve still a mighty headache, but otherwise none the worse,’ he said. ‘I need to be up and doing. This priory will not run itself without care for food and drink and all the ordinary daily needs of us all.’
I thought he looked agitated, which would be no benefit to healing his wounds, so I sought to distract him.
‘I am trying to learn what I can about the French vintner who supplied wine to the priory for the entertainment of Prince Edward, around the time when the fair began. Can you tell me what he looked like? And perhaps his name?’
‘As for his name, that is easy enough. He is called Claude Mateaux. As for his looks? I hardly paid them any mind. I was more interested in sampling the wine he brought, for he was charging a great price for it, French wine or not.’
He frowned.
‘I was reluctant to pay so much, although the quality was excellent. After a considerable argument, I was able to persuade him to lower the price a little.’
I now had a name, but without a description I only had Hamo Belancer’s offhand remark that he knew the vintner who was supplying the wine. I did not know whether it was the same man Peter Winchingham had glimpsed in the doorway of Belancer’s house.
‘Can you remember anything of his appearance?’ I asked, without much hope.
‘He looked like a Frenchman,’ the cellarer said impatiently.
I noticed that he seemed a little feverish, and thought I should not try him too far. I stood up.
‘French because of the way he dressed?’
‘Aye, that, of course. But he was dark. You would never take him for an Englishman. Black, bushy eyebrows. I remember that. And his skin was darker than an Englishman’s. Closer to the colour of new polished oak,’ he added, with an unexpectedly poetic touch.
‘Like a Barbary pirate?’ I was startled.
‘Nay! New oak, before it darkens with age.’
He was clearly annoyed with my dim wits.
‘Perhaps like a labourer,’ I suggested, ‘who has worked much in the summer sun?’
‘Aye,’ he conceded. ‘Somewhat of that hue.’ He lay back and closed his eyes.
‘And he spoke English?’
‘He did, like a Frenchman, but not like a nobleman.’
I was not quite certain what he meant by this. All English gentlemen speak French, and I have been told by those with greater familiarity than I with such things that this English-French is somewhat antiquated. Those Oxford scholars who have visited the university in Paris avow that the French spoken there is much altered from the language spoken here at the king’s court. Perhaps all that Canon Basing meant was this difference. Yet I was sure that the language spoken by a man from Provence would differ even more, for the Provençal language is partly akin to Italian. However, I did not want to press the cellarer further, for I could see that he was tired and in pain, so I thanked him, and bade him farewell.
As I was leaving the infirmary, he called after me.
‘Master Elyot, there was another delivery of wine this morning, although I do not know whether it was the same vintner. You must ask our lay steward, Master Shrewsbury. He will have seen it bestowed.’
I found the steward in his office, which was attached to the Chapter House. It was fortunate, I thought, that the priory employed such a resourceful and competent man, for he would be needed over these coming weeks.
‘Today’s delivery of wine?’ he said. ‘Aye, it arrived early this morning and was stowed in the buttery next to the canons’ refectory. We do not pitch it down into the ale cellar. These costly wines must be handled with care.’
‘I have been speaking to Canon Basing,’ I said, ‘about the French vintner who supplied the original wine for the prince, one Claude Mateaux. Was the new supply provided by him? And did he see it delivered himself?’
Master Shrewsbury eyed me thoughtfully. ‘You are asking some strange questions, Master Elyot.’
‘I am doing so at the bidding of Sheriff Walden,’ I said. ‘We are trying to discover whether this man Mateaux might have been caught up in some trouble in the town.’
He tapped his fingers on his desk. ‘Might it concern the killing of the Oxford vintner, Hamo Belancer?’
He was no fool, the steward.
‘It might,’ I said cautiously. ‘Belancer had mentioned to me that he knew the French vintner who was supplying your wine.’ I thought it unnecessary to say anything of what Peter Winchingham had overheard, and how he had been attacked.
‘Well, whether he knew Belancer or not, it was Mateaux who brought the wine today, and oversaw the delivery himself, making sure that his servants, and ours, handled the wine casks with due care.’
He eyed me thoughtfully. ‘And you are not the only one asking questions today. This Monsieur Mateaux was very curious about the priory, wanting to know which buildings were which, and how the priory was managed, and how matters stood after the attack.’
‘Indeed? That is very interesting, Master Shrewsbury.’
‘Is it? And is there any other way in which I can help you and Sheriff Walden?’
‘Can you describe Mateaux to me?’
‘A man about thirty, strong but not heavy. Of medium build. He looks more like an Italian than a Frenchman to me. Very dark hair.’
An observant man, the steward. He had confirmed what I was already almost sure of. ‘That is most helpful,’ I said. ‘And you are to be congratulated on your quick thinking during the attack the other night. Had you not rung the bell when you did, the sheriff and his men might not have arrived in time.’
‘It was the only thing to do. I knew our old men could not withstand those villains from the town, though they fought more valiantly than I could have expected.’
‘They did indeed.’ I smiled at the memory. ‘Who would have thought a group of elderly clerics, interrupted in the midst of their midnight service, could have withstood de Hungerford and his ruffians as they did?’
‘It was a bad business,’ he said, frowning. ‘What is the world come to, Master Elyot, when an ordained prior turns on his own church and his own fellow canons?’
‘Let us hope,’ I said, ‘that Bishop Glyndwelle will soon take the matter in hand.’
So now I had a name and a description of the vintner known to Hamo Belancer, who had supplied wine to the p
riory, and who seemed to fit Peter Winchingham’s description, as far as he could give one. I borrowed a piece of parchment from the steward and wrote a short note to Sheriff Walden, also requesting that he should meet me at the Mitre at noon on the day following the fair, in the hope that we might catch the man trying to sell stolen books to Winchingham. The steward sent one of the lay servants to the castle with my message, and I took the information about the Frenchman to Alice Walsea, who was selling almost the last of her ribbons and laces to goodwives from the town.
She left the girl Joan in charge of the stall and we strolled down to the main branch of the Thames, as though we had nothing more in mind than a pleasant walk in the meadow. Once we were beyond the hearing of those buying and selling in this part of the fair, I told her all that I had managed to learn about Claude Mateaux.
‘I think you have the right of it, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘His true name is probably not Mateaux, but this could be the man – by his appearance a Provençal, though passing for a Frenchman. He is most certainly not merely a vintner by profession, although it would provide excellent opportunities for his other activities – an excuse to travel without question, to enter the homes of noblemen and great men of the Church, even the Pope himself! What he can be doing in Oxford, I cannot conceive.’
‘I have wondered whether he intended to meet de Hungerford,’ I suggested. ‘It is not clear to me what the prior intended by his attack on the priory church. Was it merely to steal the treasures which had been put out of his reach, and which he had already begun to plunder? And if that was the case, did he intend to steal them simply for his own enrichment? Or had he some other purpose in mind? Could he and Mateaux be in some devilish scheme together?’
I realised I had not told her of the questions Mateaux had been asking about the priory, so I repeated what the steward had told me.
‘He might have asked such questions because he needed to know where de Hungerford was held,’ I said, ‘so that he could release him.’
