by Ann Swinfen
She nodded. ‘That is certainly possible. Although I have heard nothing to connect de Hungerford with our man, or even with France. However, our information was very limited.’
She stood still and stared out over the river, which was flowing swiftly past our feet.
‘How long does it take to reach London by boat?’
I was startled. ‘I am not sure. Quicker than by road, I suppose. It would depend on whether the boat was rowed, or sailed, and the wind direction, the speed of the river . . . I am not the person to ask.’
‘Not even London,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Westminster, which is nearer. The king’s court will be at Westminster.’
‘Someone who could tell you is the merchant, Peter Winchingham,’ I said. ‘He brought his goods upriver from London, and his barge is moored at the jetty by Trill Mill.’
‘He is trustworthy, you believe? And he is somewhat mired in this business already?’
‘I believe him an honest man,’ I said. ‘He has shown himself so in all my dealings with him. And he was an old friend of my father-in-law, who was a shrewd judge of men.’
‘Then let us consult him.’ She turned sharply about and began striding briskly up the meadow toward the wealthier part of the fair.
Although surprised at first, Peter Winchingham repeated my own qualifications as to how long the journey would take, given various conditions.
‘However, downriver, with a sail and the wind in your favour, with oars when the twists of the river rob you of the wind, it may be done in a full day. Coming upriver, against current and wind, it can take a good deal longer.’
‘Do you know where I might hire a boat?’ Alice said.
Winchingham studied her thoughtfully, then looked at me, although he did not express what must be going through his mind – why a respectable middle aged woman, here selling ribbons at the fair, should have a sudden desire to make a hasty trip to Westminster.
I glanced at Alice, who gave me a brief nod.
I drew Winchingham and Alice out of hearing of his journeyman.
‘As I have told you before, Mistress Walsea is employed by the king’s court,’ I said, ‘and is concerned in this matter of the Frenchman. I now have his name and a description of his appearance, which seems to match yours. She is anxious that she should take word of it as soon as possible to those at court who will know how to proceed.’
He nodded briskly. ‘Then there is no need to seek further, mistress,’ he said. ‘I am happy to place my own barge at your disposal, with two of my men to handle it. Free of its load, it will move fast, and it carries a large sail. At the moment the wind is from the west, which will serve you well. When would you start?’
‘As soon as I have left word with the girl who helps on my stall. We have few goods left. She can close all up now and stay at Tackley’s Inn until I return. Allow me half an hour.’
If Winchingham was surprised by such haste, he did not show it.
‘It is near midday now,’ he said. ‘You cannot reach Westminster before dark, and it is not safe to continue through the night, too many hazards in the river. It will be necessary to tie up for the night and continue after dawn, but you should reach Westminster sometime tomorrow morning.’
‘Very well. I thank you, Master Winchingham. I will send your men back as soon as they have delivered me. I am certain we will return by road. Now, if you will forgive me, I will see to my girl. In half an hour, at the Trill Mill jetty?’
Then she was gone. Winchingham and I looked at each other in some bemusement.
‘She has been described as a formidable woman,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Indeed. If I have but half an hour, I must hurry. I will see to provisioning the boat, for they will need food and drink. There are blankets on board, and there is a cabin, where the lady may be private. I will alert two of my best men.’
He was turning on his heel, when he paused. ‘The fellow selling the priory’s books came last evening. I have told him to return at noon, on the day following the fair, and I will have the coin ready for the books. We may seize him then.’
And he was away, almost running in his haste.
All of this had left me somewhat breathless, for I had not expected my information about Mateaux to stir Alice Walsea to such prompt action. However, it probably meant that she would bring back with her a party of men from amongst the king’s closest advisors, who would have the authority to arrest the Frenchman on some pretext or other, before he could carry out whatever crime he was planning. If we were right in conjecturing that he might try to release de Hungerford, I was sure that Sheriff Walden’s men could easily prevent any such attempt.
Curiously, I felt disappointed, as though, having fulfilled my small part by discovering the identity of the Frenchman, I was no longer of any use. I wished I might be setting off on a desperate voyage down river to Westminster, to bring news to the king. Instead, here I was, standing stranded in St Frideswide’s Fair, where some of the stallholders were shouting the bargains they were offering, now the fair was nearing its end, and the bear keeper’s boy was calling out the time of the dancing bear’s next performance.
Then I shook myself. I was being absurd. Let the king’s intelligencer take the matter in hand. When I reached home, I would send another message to the sheriff, apprising him of what was afoot. In the meantime, however, I had other errands to undertake.
On my way out of the fairground, I asked the gatekeeper if he knew which play was to be performed that afternoon by the travelling players.
‘Why, maister, I do believe ’tis to be the story of our St Frideswide herself, though how they mean to make a play of that, I do not know.’
I went on, satisfied. This would certainly not be the kind of lewd piece that Margaret feared. The players would surely not dare to insult the saint at her own fair, beside her own priory, and close by her own tomb. I hoped Emma would consent to come with me, to see what they made of the story.
I set off up Fish Street to the narrow alleyway near the Guildhall that led to John Shippan’s carpentry workshop. He had urged me to come and see how the desk I had ordered was progressing, but I had not found time before this. And now that I had so much idle time on my hands, I thought I would call in.
His journeyman directed me again up the rickety steps to the workshop where Shippan did his final finishing of the better pieces, and I found him there, squatting down and rubbing wax into the legs of a beautiful desk.
‘Is that mine?’ I said, suddenly rescued from my gloomy mood.
‘Aye, Master Elyot, ’tis that,’ he said, straightening himself and standing up with a small groan. ‘Eh, I’m not so limber as I once was.’ He stroked the softly glowing wood as if it were a child’s head. ‘I haven’t affixed the movable shelf yet. I’ve still to wax that, for ’tis easier done before ’tis in place.’
‘Aye, I can see,’ I said, ‘for it would swing about.’
I walked round the desk, admiring it from all sides. Shippan watched me anxiously. ‘’Tis as you wanted?’ he asked.
‘Better, far better, than I could have imagined.’
I ran my fingers over the silken finish of the writing surface. The stand raised above and behind this, to hold the text to be copied, was set at just the right angle, with two cords of gold silk ending in brass weights to hold the book open at the required page. There were five holes on each side of this stand, stepped one above the other, to hold pots of coloured paints, while along the back edge of the writing surface there was a trough for quills, a wooden cup to hold more quills, and a hole at either end for the pots of scribing inks – one for black and one for red.
‘This is the movable shelf,’ he said, taking it up from his workbench.
Although it was not yet waxed, it was otherwise complete, and he had made two neat little lidded boxes, one to hold the thin sheets of gold foil, one to hold the pellets of gesso, which fitted into their own square slots on this shelf.
‘You are a marv
el amongst master craftsmen,’ I said. ‘I have never seen such a beautiful desk. I shall be jealous of my scrivener now, and want its fellow for myself.’
Shippan looked embarrassed at this praise, so I became businesslike.
‘When will it be ready for me to collect?’ I said.
‘Two-three days. I can deliver it for you.’
I wanted that pleasure for myself. ‘Will it be too heavy for me to carry?’
‘Aye, likely. I can lend you a hand cart.’
I suspected that I was not his first customer who could not wait to lay hands on a beautiful purchase.
‘I’ll call round for it then. It is beautiful, John. I am grateful to you.’
He blustered out something in protest, but truly I was in awe at his skill. The carvings alone, of trailing vines and flowers, were as fine in their way as the border of a manuscript. They would not disgrace a cathedral.
On my way out, I paused. ‘How does that parrot fare, with the perch you made for him?’
Shippan grimaced. ‘The bird was delighted. He liked it so much, he has been nibbling away at it ever since, till he has created some fine new decoration of his own. The lady has requested a new perch, but I declined regretfully. I have no wish to spend my life making that foul creature a whetstone for his beak. I told her to fetch him a dead branch from the woods. He will enjoy the rough bark all the more.’
Laughing, I left the workshop and went cheerfully on my way, hoping I could contain my eagerness to burst out with a description of the desk before time, though it would be a sore trial of my patience.
In St Mildred Street, I found Emma and Juliana elbow deep in washtubs. Emma wiped her hot face with the back of a soapy wrist and apologised.
‘I fear you find us in some disarray, Nicholas. We have been all at sixes and sevens with the fair. This washing should have been done yesterday, for we are near out of clean linen, and now we are more than halfway through the day, with it still not finished. Will you take a sup with us?’
I could see that they were far too busy to entertain an idle visitor and she asked merely from politeness, so I shook my head. ‘I came only to ask if you would like to come to the play with me this afternoon? At four o’the clock. ’Tis the story of St Frideswide. Or perhaps you are too busy with your washing?’
‘Nay, ’twill all be spread out to dry by then.’
I realised that I must not ignore Juliana. ‘Would you like to come?’ I said, turning to her.
‘Nay, I must mind Maysant,’ she said. ‘Let Emma go with you. She has worked far harder than I these last days.’
I could not help but notice a certain knowing smile she gave Emma.
Firmly ignoring it, I said, ‘I will come for you half an hour before, if that will suit?’
‘I will be ready,’ she said.
As I made my way home, my mood was quite lifted. By now Alice Walsea would be on her way down the Thames in Peter Winchingham’s barge, helped along by a brisk autumn breeze. I knew by repute that the river did not lay a straight course to Westminster and London, but below Oxford it abandoned its whimsical wanderings which fretted the town in its web of waterways. And with the flow of the Cherwell joined to it at the edge of the meadows where the fair stood, there was a goodly body of water to carry the barge along. They would tie up for the night somewhere on the way, then reach Westminster tomorrow, where Alice could entrust the matter of Claude Mateaux and his doings to an authority higher even than Sheriff Walden.
De Hungerford was in the hands of the sheriff, and I hoped that, between us, Walden, Winchingham, and I could arrest the rogue selling the stolen books the day after the fair. All of this was cause for satisfaction. As for the murder of Hamo Belancer, that too would be the responsibility of those Alice would be bringing from Westminster. I could shake off all responsibility in these unpleasant affairs. Once the fair was over, life would take up its normal course, I could reopen the shop, and the university term would begin in earnest.
I must give some thought to this book of troubadour songs, ordered by Lady Amilia. I knew few, and there must be someone in Oxford who would know more. You could always find someone in Oxford who was deeply learned in a subject, however unlikely and obscure.
It was long past the dinner hour when I reached home. Margaret was in the garden, lifting the last of the carrots, with some uncertain help from the children, so I found a leftover cold pasty and took it into the shop, where Walter and Roger were sorting the peciae, ready for our reopening in two days’ time.
I told them about the order for a song book. ‘I shall be expecting your help,’ I said. ‘Any troubadour songs you know, I shall want words and music.’
They both looked dubious.
‘I am not one for songs,’ Walter said.
Roger grinned. ‘I could sing you many a good English song, the sort you can hear any evening in the taverns, but French songs? Nay, I think not. And I doubt Lady Amilia would approve of our good rousing English songs.’
‘I have a very clear idea of your good rousing English songs, Roger,’ I said. ‘I hardly think Mistress Makepeace would approve of them, either. You have the right of it. They will not do. The troubadour songs are mostly not even French, they are in the langue d’Oc, the language spoken in the far south, Provence. Very different from French. I fear this will be a task almost beyond me.’
‘What you need,’ Walter said, ‘is a troubadour.’
‘Not easily come by in Oxford,’ I said. ‘Now, you may both be off early today. We shall be busy enough when we reopen, the day after tomorrow. Roger, before you go home, I want you to take a letter to Sheriff Walden at the castle.’
Sitting at my desk, I quickly set out Alice Walsea’s plans and the loan of Peter Winchingham’s barge to reach Westminster by river. However well she fared, I did not believe she would be able to reach Oxford by road, with reinforcements from the king’s court, the following day, not even by nightfall, and nightfall came ever earlier now that we were near the end of October. It would be the day after that when she would return, at the earliest. The day after the fair.
I folded and sealed my letter, stamping the soft wax with my seal, and gave it to Roger to deliver.
‘And now,’ I told them, ‘I am going to make my last visit to the fair, to see the play with Mistress Thorgold.’
I ignored their leers and winks as I let myself out of the shop.
Emma was ready and waiting when I reached St Mildred Street, a little before the time I had appointed, and we set off down the slight slope of Fish Street to the fairground.
‘It is strange to think that all this will vanish away again in a few days’ time,’ she said, as we passed freely through the gateway. Canon Aubery had ruled that no entrance fee was to be charged for the remaining time of the fair.
‘It is like those visions the crusaders spoke of seeing in the eastern deserts,’ she went on, ‘when they were sure that trees and water were to be found just over the next rise in ground, but when they topped the higher ground, all had vanished and there was nothing but the dry and lifeless land stretching ahead of them.’
‘It is called a mirage,’ I said. ‘Some believe they are conjured up by devils to drive men mad, who are already exhausted and dying of thirst.’
She nodded seriously. ‘I could believe that. Or perhaps they are a kindly vision sent by God, to encourage travellers not to abandon themselves to despair, for in the end, there will be water, and shade, and safety.’
I smiled at her. ‘Let us incline to that belief, then. I am feeling more optimistic today, after a week of alarms and ill deeds.’
‘I have hardly seen you,’ she said, slipping her arm through mine. ‘We have both been so busy about our separate affairs. Mine have been very dull, although our earnings have been excellent. Tell me about yours.’
It was difficult, but I tried not to show how the warmth of her arm against mine affected me, and the brushing of her skirts against my hose. As we made our way past the st
alls and along below the town wall, I told her all that had been happening, from Peter Winchingham’s first visit to the shop, to Alice Walsea’s departure down the river to Westminster. By the time I had finished, we had walked past the bear’s dancing ring to the stage erected by the players, backing on to the town wall, some yards further on. Just behind this portion of the wall lay the grounds of Merton College. The bear had given his last performance for the day, and all the crowds here had come for the play.
‘She must be a very brave woman, this Alice Walsea,’ Emma said thoughtfully.
‘Aye, I believe she is. I know very little about her work as an intelligencer. Selling ribbons at our fair was not dangerous, but living in the Mordon household, where she might have been discovered by the murderer of her cousin, was very perilous indeed.’
She pressed my arm. ‘However it all turns out, I am glad you are out of danger, Nicholas.’
In some ways this gratified me, but I also had a niggling sense that I cut a somewhat pathetic figure, leaving the murder of Hamo Belancer and the attack on the priory, and whatever additional crimes might be brewing, in the hands of others, and one of them a woman.
However, there was no time to brood on it, for a player had stepped forward on to the stage, emerging from between curtains hung at the back. They had a space there, between the curtains and the wall, which must serve them as a changing place, and allowed them their entrances and their exits.
The player raised a trumpet to his lips and played a short fanfare. The crowd, which had been milling about and chattering, fell silent and drew close to the stage. We had managed to secure a spot near the front, which would give us a good view of everything.
‘Know, good people of Oxford,’ the player said, pitching his voice clearly, so that it could be heard by those at the very back, ‘that we come to present to you the story of Oxford’s own dear saint, St Frideswide, a Saxon princess, daughter of Dida of Eynsham. Now this Dida was a king, but a king over a small kingdom, and he answered to his overlord, King Algar, ruler of all the great lands of Mercia, as the central part of England was known in those far off days.’
