‘The ruckus you say is up on pennypinch hill. I presume by that you mean those Knieler women. Are they still there?’
‘Indeed they are,’ said Mother Han. ‘And a right pain they are too.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I told that Agnes she should go home and piss in her own yard.’
‘You know these women?’ I said, dumbfounded.
‘Course I do,’ she grinned with satisfaction. ‘I know everybody.’
I looked at her doubtfully. ‘And when did you have dealing with Dutch zealots before?’
She stopped chewing and guffawed nearly spilling her food from he mouth. It was a not a pretty sight.
‘Dutch my fat arse!’ she snorted. ‘They’s Scotch herring girls.’ I must have looked as bewildered as I felt for she clarified: ‘Them as follow the herring shoals down the coast every year to gut on Yarmouth quay.’
Now it was my mouth that fell open. ‘But I was told they came over here from Holland following a heavenly presentiment and speak in myriad tongues.’
Mother Han looked at me as though I were soft in the head. ‘Well they ain’t. They’s Scotch. And that gibberish they talk, ’tain’t God’s chatter, neither. It’s Gaelic.’
‘I’m sure you’re wrong there,’ I said indignantly. ‘Brother Jocelin spoke to them. He wouldn’t have made an error like that.’
She sniffed and wiped her mouth again. ‘Suit yerself. I’m telling you what I know. Them girls is Scotch herringers from Abderbin.’
‘I think you mean Aberdeen,’ I corrected her, pompously.
‘Wherever ’tis ’tain’t Ompsterdomp.’
‘Amsterdam,’ I grimaced. ‘Then someone must be paying them.’
‘Oh I dare say,’ she said rubbing her calves. ‘Nasty work, gutting herring. This’ll be a holiday for them.’
‘A holiday provided by who, though? Who is paying them?’
‘Ah now,’ she tapped the side of her nose. ‘That would be telling.’
‘Mother Han, if you know you should tell the Abbot. In fact, I insist you tell the Abbot,’ I said indignantly.
‘Or what?’ she challenged aggressively sticking her chin out at me. ‘You stuck in there and me out here. Besides, who’d believe a deaf and blind old woman like me?’ She held her eye-patch over her eye and put on her most pathetic look.
‘You’re not blind,’ I snorted. ‘And you’re certainly not deaf.’
But she was right. No-one would think her a credible witness. I wasn’t sure I did either. Half of what she said was gossip and the rest plain lies. And if I’m not careful my stupid threats will have closed her mouth for good. I decided to try a different tack, appeal to her maternal instincts – if the old sow was capable of any.
‘May I have some cabbage please, Mother Han?’
‘Give you the squits,’ she warned.
‘I’ll risk it.’
She dolloped a spoonful onto a slice of bread and handed it through the bars.
‘This is quite a jolly picnic we’re having,’ I grinned sinking my teeth into the squishy mess. ‘I haven’t had this much fun since I was a child.’
She gave me a sideways look.
‘So, erm, what is your story?’ I asked conversationally. ‘How is it you know so much of Yarmouth?’
She swallowed. ‘That’s a tale easily told. My mother was a dockside whore, same as my sisters and me. She put me to whoring first when I was six.’
I was truly shocked. ‘That’s terrible. Where was your father?’
‘Ah now,’ she said enthusiastically licking a filthy thumb. ‘My father was a sailor. Russian by all accounts. I even have an idea who he was. I’ve got him pinned down to one of fifty,’ she guffawed at her own joke. ‘Oh don’t you shake your head in that holier-than-thou way, you pious prig,’ she admonished. ‘I don’t need your pity. Remember, I’m the one out here and you’re the one in there. I did all right. Not many get to my age starting from where I did. I’ve had five husbands and ten children,’ she said proudly. ‘Though only one lived past the cradle, God save ’em,’ she added and crossed herself.
‘The boy on the market,’ I said.
‘Yeah, that one.’ She pulled a face and let out a stream of invectives only a quarter of which I understood. ‘It’s his wife I blame. Drunk all day and a shrew by night. I’ve no grandchicks alive nor never will have now,’ she sighed.
‘In that case, why are you called Mother Han?’
‘Mother Hen, Mother Han. It’s because I look after the waifs and strays,’ she said seriously, then added apparently as an afterthought: ‘Like that murdered boy.’
I looked up. ‘Matthew?’
She grinned a toothless grin. ‘Yeah, I thought that’d interest you.’
‘But he has a mother of his own. I’ve met her.’
‘Yeah? Well that’s well enough, then.’ She sniffed and turned away to find a jug of the same foul liquid the gaoler had been quaffing.
I tried to understand the implications of her words. ‘Are you saying Matthew was abandoned by his mother?’
‘Never said that. No, never said that. Just that he was more away from his home than in it. Liked to run with the strays, that one.’
That didn’t sit well with the impression Jocelin and I were given of the boy when we visited the mill, and it rendered the image of him from the oath as a saintly child, hard working and devoted to his family even more absurd. I was sure Mother Han could tell me more but I sensed her reluctance to do so. She unstopped the leather bottle, took a long satisfying swig and wiping her mouth again looked at me askance.
‘What you in here for anyway?’
‘Oh, it was a mistake,’ I said vaguely.
‘Huh!’ she snorted. ‘Every caged bird says that.’
‘In my case it happens to be true,’ I said indignantly.
‘ ’Course it is. And trees can talk and rainbows sing and angels dance upon a pin.’ She grinned at me slyly. ‘Something to do with that boy?’ She nodded when I demurred. ‘They’re saying he’s a martyr.’
‘What do you say?’
She shrugged. ‘Could be.’
I smiled. ‘Saint Matthew of the Haberdon. He’s already got half a dozen miracles to his name. I shouldn’t wonder if there’s a shrine built in the abbey and a holy day declared in his honour within the year.’
‘Ha!’ Mother Han rocked with laughter. ‘That’ll be worth seeing!’
‘Why so scornful?’ I pressed her.
She took another long swig of her bottle. ‘Because he was a vile little devil, that’s why.’ She spat.
‘A devil in what way?’ I asked trying to keep the urgency out of my voice.
She rocked on her buttocks. ‘Nah,’ she said suspiciously. ‘I’ve said enough. It’s nothing to me.’
‘You can’t stop now,’ I said desperately, but she was already replacing her eye-patch and heaving herself off her haunches.
‘Time I was getting back to work.’
‘I hope by that you do not mean your usual immoral trade,’ I said in frustration and immediately regretted it.
Mother Han stopped and gave me a stern look of rebuke. ‘I am an old woman with a useless son and an idiot husband. I get by any way I can.’ She snorted down at me. ‘I never met a beggar yet refused a crust on moral grounds. Or a hungry monk a chop for all his high and mightiness.’
I looked at the piece of leg which I had picked completely dry but which even now was being sniffed by a rat and found I had no words to reply.
She nodded knowingly. ‘I’ll bid you good night then, brother.’ She looked up at the darkened sky, pulled her shawl up over her head and lifted her skirts to descend the stone steps. In a moment she was gone.
Chapter 14
SOME NEW INFORMATION
‘I trust you found your night of confinement rewarding, Master Physician, and that you took advantage of the time for reflection and self-examination.’
Once again I was standing before Samson in his study. Between us on the desk
this time was the casket Isaac had given me, broken and hastily repaired but still with the treasure in it - or half of it. Someone had clearly helped themselves to the other half. De Saye, I imagined, or one of his henchmen.
‘It was a very uplifting experience, Father Abbot. I am grateful to your grace for allowing me this unique opportunity to meditate upon my faults which are many and onerous.’
He chuckled. ‘I bet you are. Jocelin told me how desperate you were to get out. I would have had you released sooner but Lord de Saye insisted on your incarceration. And frankly I could find no reason to disagree with him.’
Ah yes, I could quite believe de Saye had enjoyed the prospect of locking me up. I was still furious with Samson for going along with it but decided to keep my own counsel. I was out, that was the main thing, and antagonising Samson now might put me back inside again. But there was no disguising my face.
‘It’s no good looking at me like that, Walter,’ he said studying me through narrowed eyes. ‘You’ve only yourself to blame for all this. The fact is you should have told me about the casket.’ He tapped the thing with a fat pink finger.
‘It wasn’t something I thought would interest your grace,’ I attempted weakly, but he merely shook his head.
‘No, Walter, that won’t do. The day we buried the boy I asked you specifically if Moy had given you anything and you told me he hadn’t. You lied.’
I squirmed. ‘Not lied exactly, father. He didn’t actually give me the casket. Rather he deposited it with me.’
‘However you choose to dress it up you deliberately kept the existence of the casket from me and from everyone else. Not even Jocelin knew of it. And what a stupid thing to do! Good God, man, don’t you see how it looks? Here you are interviewing the chief suspect in a murder case and the next thing is you’ve got a box full of his trinkets hidden in your cell.’
‘Half full.’
‘What?’
I nodded towards the casket. ‘Half the treasure’s missing. Hadn’t you noticed? I can assure you it was all there when I had it.’
Samson looked at the thing and shifted awkwardly on his chair. ‘Yes, well we’ve only your word for that, haven’t we?’
Despite my Herculean efforts to control myself I’m afraid I just lost myself then. After a night locked in a rat-infested cage I’d had enough.
‘If you think I’d steal it,’ I exploded. ‘If you truly think that then put me to the test. Come - bring book, bring candle. I will swear on all I hold sacred….’
‘Oh, calm down,’ he said flapping a languid hand at me. ‘Do you think you’d be standing here now if I really thought you’d stolen the thing? Besides,’ he sniffed. ‘I’ve had your cell searched. And don’t start blustering again. De Saye would have had you racked if I hadn’t. As it is I’ve told him that I already knew about the casket and asked you to look after it, so you’re off the hook. But heed me,’ he said wagging a stubby finger at me. ‘This is what happens when you take matters into your own hands. Perhaps it will teach you in future to be completely open with me.’
‘I can take it, then, that my brother monks who sent you to Mildenhall on a wild goose chase will have received similar punishment – a night in gaol for not being “completely open” with you, father?’
‘Oh, they will be dealt with, never fear,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m fully aware of what they were up to. You’re not going to be the only one to pay for your deceit.’
He got up and poured us some wine for which I was grateful not having had anything pass my lips since Mother Han’s supper the previous night. He studied me thoughtfully as he handed me my goblet.
‘Out of curiosity, why did Moy give you the casket?’
‘Insurance,’ I said wiping my mouth. ‘If anything happened to him I was to make sure it got to his wife and family.’
Samson wrinkled his bulbous nose. ‘That sounds suspiciously like a confession to me.’
I shook my head. ‘He’s a Jew. He doesn’t expect to get a fair hearing.’
‘Oh, he’ll get that, all right,’ said Samson ominously.
‘What does that mean?’
He brushed the question aside. ‘Just tell me now, did he give you anything else? Anything at all?’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he blustered. ‘You tell me.’ He stared hard at me.
I hesitated sipping my wine slowly to give me time to think. Did he mean Isaac’s testament? I couldn’t think what else he could be referring to. Would he even know of its existence? Isaac had given it to me and I had mentioned it to no-one. But if Samson knew about it then surely that confirmed its importance. If only I’d opened the damn thing sooner I’d know the answers to all these questions. Should I mention the thing now in the hope that Samson might somehow be able to retrieve it? But then I might not see it again, in which case I’d never know what was in it.
I lowered my eyes. ‘No, father, there’s nothing.’
Samson narrowed his eyes. ‘Why do I think you’re still holding something back?’ He sighed heavily. ‘You disappoint me, Walter. I am not at all happy with the way you have handled things. And I am not alone in that opinion.’
I looked up. ‘Why, who else have I displeased?’
‘The King. I understand he has already spoken to you on the matter – and that’s something else that’s happened while I was away and seems to have slipped your memory.’
‘He told me he was pleased with my work,’ I said petulantly.
But Samson was shaking his head. ‘Don’t be fooled by royal flattery, Walter. This time next week he won’t even remember who you are. Well, for your information the King has now spoken to me. John is not the most patient of men. He is anxious to be leaving here and wants a resolution before he goes – preferably one in his favour.’
‘You mean he wants to get his hands on Isaac’s money.’
Samson looked at me severely. ‘The King has a perfect right to the property of any defunct Jew. Like it or not, that is the law. It’s not just his assets but his debts too, remember. The King would be liable for any outstanding monies owed.’
I scoffed. ‘Isaac doesn’t owe a thing to anyone.’
‘Except to God, perhaps. You know, it seems to me that you are grown far too fond of this Jew. That is unprofessional. Your loyalty is not to him but to me.’ He inhaled deeply. ‘Well, matters have moved on a pace during your confinement.’
My blood ran cold. ‘Meaning what?’
But Samson merely drew himself erect. I thought for one dreadful moment he was going to remove me from the case. But it was worse than that.
He looked me in the eye. ‘Master Investigator, the King has charged me to ask you formally: Do you have any suspect for the murder of the boy Matthew, son of William the Fuller, other than Isaac ben Moy?’
‘Not yet. But I’m working on it.’
‘Then know that the King desires most earnestly that this matter be resolved as speedily as possible. He therefore requests and directs that the issue come before a formal judicial assembly to be held here at the abbey court to decide it once and for all. And,’ he added ominously, ‘as his highness’s chief legal officer within the Liberty of Saint Edmundsbury, I agree with him.’
‘A trial?’ I was stunned. ‘When?’
‘Monday.’
‘Three days - but it’s too soon,’ I protested. ‘I have hardly begun to collect the evidence.’
Samson busied himself with his papers. ‘Evidence will not be the deciding factor in this case.’
‘Not the deciding factor?’ I guffawed. ‘What babble is this? How can there be a trial without evidence? Who is to be the judge? The King? You?’
Samson shot a look at me that was so violent it made me cringe. ‘God is to be the judge in this case, brother. God.’
I could feel my shoulders sag as the implication of his words struck home. ‘You mean trial by ordeal. I should have guessed.’
‘Are you doubting God’s justice?�
� he asked facetiously.
It was another of Samson’s trick questions. How else could I answer? I pursed my lips. ‘No.’
He nodded knowingly. ‘If Moy is innocent, Deo volente, God will protect him. If not then his punishment will be righteous.’ He leaned forward. ‘It’s his God as well as ours, remember.’ He sat back again in his chair. ‘In any event, it is far better that we have someone to focus upon. Last time we had no-one and fifty-seven innocents died. This way at least there is a…a…’
‘Scapegoat I think is the term you’re groping for, father. I believe it’s a Hebrew concept.’ I pursed my lips again. ‘May I continue my investigation up to the trial?’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Do as you wish. You don’t have very long.’
‘Then I had better begin.’ I turned to go.
‘Just a minute,’ he said. He looked me up and down critically and wrinkled his nose. ‘You’re filthy. And you smell as if you’ve been in a sewer. What’s that stuff in your hair?’
‘Bat droppings, father.’
‘Really? Well tidy yourself up. You’re a disgrace to the abbey. Now run along, I’m busy.’ He turned sharply in his chair to attend to a pet dormouse that he kept in a cage by his bookshelf.
*
‘We don’t have much time,’ I said to Jocelin as he poured a second bucket of hot water over me. ‘Ayeee! Hell’s fire, Jocelin, are you trying to scald me to death?’
‘I-I’m s-sorry, brother, I d-didn’t see where I was p-pouring.’
The servant who had brought the hot water sniggered from the corner of the room. I looked up at Jocelin from my bath. ‘It might help if you opened your eyes. Have you never seen a naked man before? It’s not a sin you know.’
‘I have n-never even seen my own b-body…’ he glanced nervously at the servant and lowered his voice, ‘…in puris naturalibus.’
The servant sniggered again.
‘You saw Matthew’s body naked,’ I reminded him scooping a bowl of water over my head to swill the bat droppings out of my tonsure.
Unholy Innocence Page 15
