by Kate Ellis
Jane’s arrival shattered the peace of the chamber. "The chapman's here, my lady. He awaits you in the parlour." Her eyes shone with excitement. "I found him straight away. He was at Mother Gatley's."
"And what else did you find at Mother Gatley's, pray?"
Jane blushed. "Will Gatley bought me some laces, my lady," she said shyly. It was amazing how this mouse of a girl was transformed by the attentions of a well set young man.
"Then I hope you've left some for me. Come along, girl, let's not keep the chapman waiting."
Michael, the chapman, made a little bow as the lady of the manor and her maid entered the parlour, a well lit room strewn with sweet smelling herbs and fresh rushes.
When the business of choosing laces was over, Katheryn bid the chapman put his pack aside and sit down and she sent Jane to fetch some ale.
"You brought me a letter, master chapman? From a lady in Liverpool."
"Aye, my lady. I was there two weeks since. It was Mistress Moore who gave me the letter. All Liverpool knows Mistress Moore. She is widow of the late Mayor of Liverpool and mother to Francis Moore Esquire of Bank Hall. Mistress Moore lives in the Old Hall, the Dower House between the townfield and the strand."
"You didn't see Agnes, the girl who wrote the letter?"
"No, my lady. Just Mistress Marjory." Michael smiled, revealing blackened teeth in a pleasant but pockmarked face. "Mistress Marjory's enough for any man, I'll be bound."
"And she said nothing to you?"
"Only to be sure to deliver the letter when I reached Cheadle." He took a long drink of ale. Trudging the dusty lanes of Cheshire with his heavy burden was thirsty work. "She said nothing more but looked most put out."
Katheryn thanked the chapman graciously and left him to Jane's care. She needed to think.
*
Sir John Bulkeley, Rector of Cheadle in the county of Cheshire, eyed the new addition to his church with suspicion as he rose from his prayers. The great Bible translated into English was chained firmly to the wooden lectern. It had been planted in the new church of St. Mary like an alien weed, on the orders of Master Thomas Cromwell, at the same time as his men had come to smash the statues and steal what little treasure the village church possessed.
It could not be read by most of his illiterate congregation. But there was always some half-educated yeoman who would stand there at the lectern reading the words to his ignorant neighbours and putting his own interpretation on them. Sir John resented this challenge to his authority. Was he not their parish priest, responsible for the souls of the village? Let the yeoman keep to his own business. Did the priest tell him how to keep his animals or plough his land?
John tried to banish these resentful thoughts from his mind. It was futile to resist the power of the King if you wanted to survive.
The great door opened, letting a shaft of sunlight into the southernmost corner of the church. John turned to see who was disturbing his peace.
"Good day, brother. I had not intended to interrupt your prayers."
"You didn't, Katheryn. I had finished." He paused, noting the expression on his sister's face; the single minded determination. She was planning something. Even as a child, Katheryn had used her formidable talent for organisation to keep her three brothers in line.
"I am summoned to the aid of one of my sisters from Godstow. I intend to go at once."
"But the roads are not safe for travellers. There are rogues and vagabonds roaming the countryside and Oxford is so far..."
"Not Oxford, brother. This girl dwells in Liverpool, but forty miles from here. By my reckoning it will take two days to reach and I will seek a night's lodgings in Warrington."
"But you cannot travel alone." John, a tall man, bent towards his sister with concern. One day Katheryn's determined nature would lead her into peril. He still shuddered as he remembered how she had defied Thomas Cromwell, pleading for her nunnery to be spared from the commissioners. That sort of defiance had led others to the scaffold. He had hoped that now she was home, settled in the fine manor house which doubled as the village’s rectory, she would be content with a life of quiet safety. But now he feared his hopes were in vain.
"I will not travel alone,” she assured him. “Whatever else I may be, brother, the Lord did not create me a fool. I will take Jane and Thomas the groom. I have given orders for the horses to be made ready."
"But Katheryn..."
She looked around the church, its solid grey stone walls softened in the candlelight and its fine oak roof hardly visible in the smoky darkness. The tall tallow candles in the chantry chapels of wealthy local families, on either side of the altar, burned for the souls of their founders.
Katheryn was in no mood to argue so she changed the subject to one dear to her brother's heart. "I have not forgotten my promise."
"What promise is that, sister?"
"The new chancel. I will pay for its building." She saw John's eyes glow as he contemplated this addition to his beloved church. "That instrument of Satan, Tom Cromwell, gave me a handsome pension when I left Godstow, to buy my co-operation, no doubt. I should like to see it used for the glory of God's house. No argument, John. I am determined."
John, who was not about to argue, smiled. "The Lord will bless you for it, sister." He raised his hand in benediction. "And take my blessings for your journey."
She turned to go and was half way down the church when the Rector spoke again. "I saw our groom entering the White Hart a while back. I doubt he will be sober enough for the journey you intend.”
Katheryn turned to look at her brother who was grinning at her. Did he think to prevent her journey so easily? She turned and marched resolutely through the church porch. She then turned right by the church gate and continued towards the door of the whitewashed ale house next to the church.
As she entered the White Hart, Katheryn resisted the temptation to put her hand to her nose to mask the smell of stale ale and foul rushes. The men who sat at the battered trestle tables with their tankards of ale, looked up as she entered and a curious dog, its fur eaten by mange, approached her boldly and sniffed at her skirts.
Unabashed by the silence she had created - the silence of working men unused to seeing the Lady of the Manor enter the ale house they regarded as their sovereign territory - Katheryn spotted her quarry in a darkened corner. Thomas the groom did not see her at first, occupied as he was with his game. He was playing at dice with a stranger. There were many men who made a living roaming the country cheating gullible drinkers. It seemed that one of their number had reached Cheadle.
The weasel-faced stranger threw the dice and grinned maliciously. Thomas took a gulp of ale and pushed two coins at weasel-face. Katheryn stood behind the pair who were too preoccupied to notice her presence. The landlord, a large sweaty man in a stained apron, began to approach deferentially but Katheryn put her hand to her lips, instructing the man to be silent. He obeyed. Her eyes were on the pair playing dice. Weasel-face threw again. Thomas sighed and pushed another coin at him.
Both men looked up, startled, as Katheryn grabbed the dice. The landlord stepped forward, sensing trouble.
Katheryn threw the dice down on the table in front of the gaping men. Thomas blinked at her drunkenly, not believing what he saw. Katheryn addressed weasel-face, who was looking around for a means of escape. "Will you play against me, sir? I favour the numbers three and six." She drew two coins from the purse that hung from her waist and threw them down.
"My lady," the landlord interrupted, worried for a reputation; hers or his inn's, Katheryn could not tell. "It is not fitting."
Katheryn sat down on the bench beside her groom and threw the dice again. Six and three: her suspicions had been confirmed. "I will keep those numbers, sir. If I win again, you will return the money you have cheated from my groom here. Is that agreed?"
Weasel-face knew when he'd been beaten. There was silence in the ale house, broken only by the clucking of the hens who wandered the floor pecking at s
craps. Thomas, the worse for drink, lolled on the bench next to his mistress, enjoying the spectacle.
Katheryn threw the dice: three and six. She looked at weasel face triumphantly as he thrust a pile of coins at Thomas who was too far gone to care.
She turned to the landlord who stood open mouthed. "Men like this who prey on honest folk should, by rights, be handed to the constable." Weasel-face looked apprehensive for the first time: he didn't relish the idea of a day in the stocks. Katheryn continued "What do you wait for, Master Brownlow? Have this rogue shown from the village and warned not to return. And have my groom here taken to the pump and given a good soaking to sober him up."
The landlord loomed towards weasel-face, who rose suddenly and made a run for it; getting out while his luck held. Thomas was hauled unceremoniously from his seat by two men sitting nearby and dragged from the ale house. Katheryn graciously bid the landlord good day and swept out into the weak October sunshine.
Thomas would be no use to her for many hours yet and she wanted to be away as soon as possible. There was only one solution; one that she knew would please Jane.
When she reached the Rectory, Jane greeted her eagerly; excited, if a little nervous about her coming journey. When her mistress told her that she should ask Will Gatley to be their escort, Jane tried to hide her enthusiasm, although she was sure that in the quiet dimness of the hall the whole household could hear the quickened beating of her heart.
It took an hour for the pack horses to be loaded with their baggage. Katheryn didn't believe in travelling light. And whatever Liverpool had in store, she intended to be well prepared.
*
Mistress Marjory Moore had given strict instructions that Agnes should keep to her chamber. Whether this was for the good of Agnes's health or to keep the girl out of trouble, Marjory refused to admit...even to herself.
Agnes was regaining her strength. The daily routine of embroidery and study of the Bible and the lives of the saints was no longer enough for her. But she knew that if Mistress Marjory thought she was recovering, she would be expected to resume her household duties. And Agnes was growing restless: she had to know the truth.
Her legs were still weak as she moved slowly across the rush-strewn floor and almost fell into the window seat. The leaded casement window overlooked the front of the house. From there she could see the rutted line of Mill Street where a cart trundled past on its way to the townfield, followed by a ragged woman and child. She stared out of the window for a further hour, grateful that Mistress Marjory was kept too busy bossing her household to disturb her. Soon the parade of ragged humanity on foot, cart and occasionally on horseback, travelling to the townfield to tend their plots, began to pall. She was not going to see the one she hoped to see; besides, it was growing dark. She watched half an hour more as the twilight gathered but now the road below was empty; few people ventured out after sunset.
Then she saw him. His shape was so familiar; his way of walking, the way he held his cloak around his body. She stood up in the gathering darkness and pressed her face to the window to see better. It was him. She was sure. She struggled with the window catch but by the time she managed to open the casement, the cloaked figure had disappeared quickly in the direction of the townfield.
Tears began to flow down Agnes's cheeks and she sank wearily back onto the window seat. It had been him...she was certain.
CHAPTER 2
The sodden body found by Peter Fisher in the waters of the River Mersey had been taken to the church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas where it lay in a rough wooden coffin before the altar in the chapel of St. John. It was only right, Peter had reasoned, that the church should claim its own.
Father James, the priest, had not looked at the body too closely. It had been in the water for several days and the face had been eaten away by the fishes. When it had been stripped, washed and coffined, all the dead man needed was his prayers.
When Father Clement, the priest in charge of the chantry chapel of St. John, had disappeared a few days before, Father James feared that he had met with an accident; or worse, been robbed and murdered by the villains who roamed the land. Gone were the days when a man's calling was respected and the murder of a priest would confer everlasting damnation. This was a Godless and lawless age. Now it seemed that Father James’s worst fears for Father Clement had been justified: the rogues had even hacked off the corpse’s hand, no doubt for reasons of their own which Father James did not dare to contemplate.
Father James knelt before the coffin and muttered a prayer. He prayed for Father Clement's soul and for the souls of his killers. But he added a further prayer begging forgiveness for himself: he had not liked Clement. Even now, when he lay dead before him, Father James could not bring himself to think well of his fellow priest.
Father Clement in life had been a handsome, well built fellow of about twenty eight summers, with an easy charm and - Father James suspected - an eye for the ladies of the parish. James recalled the time when he had caught Clement alone with one of the Mayor's daughters, his hand upon her breast as he purported to settle some complex theological point which she claimed had puzzled her?
Clement had served as chantry priest for three months, having come with a letter of recommendation from Abbot Birkett of Norton. But James had had misgivings from the start. Clement had been lax in saying the required masses for the souls of the founders of his chantry and James had noted his absences with increasing irritation. The Augustinian canons of Norton Abbey had always had a good reputation in the district for their work in the local churches: so why had Father James's church ended up with one who did not justify the high standing of his order?
But now the man was dead. He lay, battered, in his linen shroud; his black priest’s gown, heavy with river water, having been stripped from his body. Father James muttered another prayer of repentance for thinking ill of the dead.
He did not hear Valentine approaching. The chanting of latin verbs by the boys of the small grammar school held in the chantry chapel of St. Catherine on the other side of the church had masked his footsteps on the stone flags.
"Good day to you, Father."
James turned his head and rose from his prayers, glad to see his old friend.
"I heard of your loss, Father James."
"I was praying for his soul, brother. How goes it with you?"
Valentine smiled. He was a wiry man of middling height and middling years. His hair, once jet black, was now streaked with grey. With his olive complexion and warm brown eyes, the former infirmarian of the Priory at Birkenhead over the river had been taken more than once for a foreigner, his dark looks being a legacy from his long dead Spanish mother.
"There are many in Liverpool in need of my services, Father. Business is good." With the forty shillings given to each monk as they left the shelter of the Priory, Brother Valentine had set himself up as an apothecary in the town of Liverpool. His skill with medicines and reassuring manner had ensured the venture's success.
Valentine looked at the coffin. "Do you know how he died?"
"Set upon by thieves, or at least that's what I surmise. His hand has been hacked off. The world is a sorry place."
"May I see?"
Father James was surprised at Valentine's request. "His face is mutilated, eaten by river creatures. He was in the river a few days. It is not a pleasing sight, brother."
"I have seen worse, no doubt." Valentine lifted the coffin lid and put his hand to his face as the smell hit his nostrils. He pushed aside the shroud. "He is indeed battered but it was done after death, probably on the rocks beneath the water. The marks have not bruised." He studied the man's bloated chest and gingerly turned the body over. "He was stabbed with a long sharp dagger by the looks of it. And his hand; I should say that was hacked off with a dagger too...not a clean cut. Did he wear rings on that hand?"
Father James's brow furrowed as he tried to remember. He thought of the hand that had lain on the gentle swell of the Mayor's daughte
r's breast. Was there a ring? He thought not. "I couldn't say. But they have left the ring on his other hand. See." He indicated the corpse’s swollen left hand. On it, stuck fast on the bloated white middle finger, was a ring, plain gold with a matt black stone: not a common design. “It is the one he always wore. I recognise it well. Surely they would have taken it.”
"There are reasons other than theft for removing a dead man's hand," said Valentine softly. The two men looked at each other.
Father James could stand the stench no longer. He flicked the shroud back into place so it covered the mess that was once a face and replaced the lid of the coffin. "I cannot believe... I have heard no rumours of such things in the town."
