‘What are you doing?’ an angry voice called, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the innkeeper in the garden. Nyck looked like a man who had been watering his greens, and as I turned, he was pulling his codpiece back into position.
‘You little …!’ he shouted and stomped towards us. ‘Ben, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times to keep out of those trees, you little fagger! I said that next time I found you in them, you’d feel my belt on your back, you – hey, come back here!’
Ben, noticing the innkeeper had begun to undo his belt, had taken the sensible option. As I deposited him on the ground, he started up and pelted away, as fast as a hare seeing the greyhound. I watched with a mixture of surprise and envy. Once, I know, I had been able to make similar speed when there was the threat of a thrashing. That was some time ago, although I still had an impressive turn of speed when necessary.
‘The little …’
‘You called him a “fagger”. What did you mean by that?’
‘You misheard me.’
‘No, I didn’t. You called him a fagger. That’s a boy who’s let in through a small window to burgle a house or to let in his accomplices.’
‘It’s just a word I use instead of “bastard”, that’s all.’
‘He displeases you?’
‘Regularly. I wanted to help the family, but the little … anyway, he won’t do as he’s told. I have tried to make him earn his living, but will he listen to me? No! Instead, he comes out here and climbs my apple trees, damaging the branches. I’ll be lucky to see any cider next year, if the little … anyway, I’ll lash him for this. And if he won’t come back, he can stay out. His mother has my sympathy, and I’ve been kind enough to allow her to stay in the house, but if that little son of the devil doesn’t start helping about the place and stop trashing my trees, he’ll be out, and the rest of his family with him! I can’t keep on helping and feeding them if he’s going to—’
‘Yes, I see,’ I said. ‘It was good of you to put them up.’
‘Someone had to. Their father refused even to speak with poor Dorothy when they got here.’
‘When they got here?’
‘They had been living with him at Ilford, and when he left them to come here, they were destitute. He’s been here almost a year now, and they arrived two weeks ago. I’m not sure how they learned he was here, but they just turned up one day – she starved, and her children little better. She had tried to speak to Father Peter to get him to help them with a little of his money, as a priest should, but he spurned them.’
‘You don’t sound as though you were entirely impressed with him and his attitude.’
He looked at me as though I was mad. ‘His wife and five children came and he couldn’t even find the courage to face them, man! As it was, I had to take them in and protect them. How would you feel if you were to do something like that, and the man wouldn’t even give his wife a “good morning”? I call it shameful. He was no priest, to my way of thinking.’
He took off his apron, which was a linen sheet tucked under his belt, screwed it up, and stormed back indoors.
I was left feeling bemused. The man was clearly a good fellow, willing to help those in distress, but there was something that left me feeling a little uneasy about him. Perhaps it was the way he spoke of the boy. It was rare to call a lad a fagger, after all. That was a special term for a thieving scrote from London, I always thought – but no doubt the man had only known of it as a pejorative, the same as others would call a man a ‘bastard’ or a ‘son of a whore’. It was just a phrase, nothing more.
There was a low whistle from behind me, and when I peered out over the orchard, I saw a small cap of tousled hair and an earnest, anxious face underneath it. Well, I thought, the little devil won’t come back here in a hurry after the threat of a damn good thrashing from the innkeeper. Accordingly, I bent my steps to the far end of the orchard where the lad was peering over a small gorse bush in a hedge to the pasture beyond.
‘You put on a good turn of speed,’ I said admiringly.
‘He wasn’t going to catch me.’
‘He is keen to take his belt to you.’
‘If he tries, I’ll kill him!’
‘I would be careful about how often you say things like that,’ I said. ‘People can take such words seriously.’
‘I am serious. I hate him.’
‘Why? He’s putting you up here, isn’t he?’
‘Only because he wants my mother.’
‘Eh?’
‘He’s swiving her in return for letting us stay here.’
I blinked. His language left little to the imagination, after all. ‘Perhaps your mother needed the affection. After all, your father didn’t do anything to help you, did he?’
‘He tried. He couldn’t do it obviously. The people in church would have beaten him if they learned he had a wife and family.’
‘What people in the church?’
‘All of them. He told—’
He clapped a hand over his mouth and turned a face of such despair to me that I couldn’t help but smile.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I won’t tell.’
‘You promise?’
I put a hand to my heart. ‘I swear it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So you saw him?’
‘Yes. I was in the churchyard, watching, and he saw me and took me inside. He hugged me.’
The little brute looked as though he had been given the keys to heaven, from the way he smiled at the memory. I suddenly had a memory of when I was young. My mother died when I was little, so my old man told me – I always suspected that she grew bored with his beatings and cursing, and left to find a new life. My father was a bully and brute who counted the day lost when he hadn’t thrashed me for one thing or another. It was because of him that I had myself fled from home when I was only a lad still, and made my way by degrees to London, where I expected to make myself rich. But London wasn’t as easy as people had said, and … well, that’s another story. My point is that I knew what it was like to go through life without a hug or any affection being given. This little boy touched something in me.
I stepped towards him, ready to give him a hug of my own, but he gave me a look of disgust. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’
‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘I was just thinking. What did your father say to you?’
‘He said that he couldn’t see me and the others in public, but he hoped he would be able to arrange something soon, so that we could all be together again, somehow. He was going to arrange things, he said.’
‘How?’
Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he mention money? Gold? Something he could use to provide for you all?’
The boy looked up at me with the sort of look that a physician would give a patient who said he could hear voices. ‘What gold would he have?’
‘Oh, nothing. I just wondered whether he had mentioned anything like that.’
‘No, he didn’t. He just said that he had been lucky.’
Being given a box full of gold would be considered fairly lucky, I considered. But that gold would have been with him for fifteen years, if Dick Atwood was to be believed. I was struck with a sudden doubt. Could the priest have kept such wealth a secret from his wife for fifteen years? Could he have kept such a treasure and not spent it? ‘Do you remember, when you were a boy, back at your last home, did your father have a box? A heavy box?’
‘Yes. A great chest. It’s in the church now.’
I felt a thump as this news hit my breast. My heart was racing like a horse in a race. ‘Oh? In the church now, is it?’
I was fearful only that someone else might discover the box. While a man is alive, there are dangers inherent in looking into his belongings, but once the fellow has died, people might feel it their duty to investigate, and I did not want someone else opening the chest’s lid and finding it full of gold. Having ascertained that his fat
her’s box was a chest about a foot and a half high, two feet wide, and a foot and a half deep, I left the boy and made my way to the church.
It felt as if I was walking on air, as though I was inebriated. Certainly, my head felt fine for the first time that day. My stomach was unworried and my feet scarcely touched the ground. My whole body seemed no more substantial than a feather. The wind might have borne me along the road without effort. As it was, I hurried along the roadway in the direction of St Botolph’s.
It stood on a prominent lump of ground. I wouldn’t call it a hill; it was nothing more than a mound of earth, but it was enough to give the church a good view all around.
Pushing open the door, and ignoring the protesting screech of rusted hinges, I found myself in a pleasant little country church. Dust moved about, and although the sunlight filtering through the clouds was dull, it was enough to create shafts of light in the gloom. There was glass in the windows, and one had been set with colours, depicting a saint – perhaps St Botolph himself. I didn’t pay attention to that, because on the left of the nave stood a large box, just as Ben had described.
I couldn’t move. It was so enticing and so close. I stood as my heart made an attempt to gallop from my chest, and just stared. The box looked solid, as if it was made from oak. It was set about with iron bands, and there was a large padlock in the front. Someone must have the key to that, I thought. There was a creak from overhead as the wind picked up and moved the shingles of the roof. It sounded like the gusts were trying to pull each shingle from its moorings, one after another.
Going down on one knee quickly, I made the sign of the cross, with my eyes fixed on the altar, but my gaze had moved to the chest before I was fully upright again. There was a fresh sound from above, which made me look up. Two doves were sidling along a rafter overhead. I chuckled – I had thought it was a falling spar or shingles – and made my way to the box.
I tried to lift it, and immediately had to give up. It was an immense weight. That itself made my heart race. Everyone knows that gold is heavy. Very heavy. If there was a lot of gold in here, I wouldn’t be able to move it, obviously. For some reason, I had a ridiculous grin fitted to my face, and I had to deliberately wipe it away. This was a serious matter.
The padlock was solid. The hasp itself was a half-inch thick, and the body of the lock was very substantial. But I wondered whether the furniture of the box, and especially the metal ring through which the hasp passed to secure the lid, might be attacked. I pulled and jerked at the padlock, but it appeared immovable. I needed a long pole to use as a lever. I began to search around, but I knew there was little chance of finding something of that nature in a church. Was there a smith in the village? I hadn’t seen one. If not, perhaps a shovel would suffice.
There was another coo and a scuffling overhead, but I ignored it. If two doves wanted to get friendly, that was fine. I was content to leave them to it, as long as they didn’t aim droppings at me. I was too involved in studying the locks on the box to pay them much notice.
Nor, sadly, did I pay much attention to other sounds, as I discovered when Dorothy said sharply, ‘What are you doing there?’
I stared up at the doves accusingly. Their noises and merrymaking had distracted me enough to ensure that I could not hear Dorothy’s soft steps. Of course, if I had closed the door after me, it might have helped. Someone opening the door, with the resulting complaint of unoiled hinges, would have alerted me to their presence, but because I had left the door open, she had been able to surprise me.
Turning, with an innocent expression carefully crafted on my face, I smiled at her. ‘Mistress Dorothy. How are you?’
‘Never mind me, what are you doing with that chest?’
Her tone was sharp. It could not fail to impress upon me that she was highly protective of this box. She must know that it contained something valuable.
‘Nothing. I merely wondered why it should be locked. A church’s valuables are usually kept securely in the priest’s chamber. What could be inside this, I wonder?’
‘Whatever is inside it is for the new priest to discover,’ she said, with a deal of emphasis, I thought.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I agreed, and moved away. I didn’t want her to get the impression that I was particularly fascinated by this one box. ‘I am so sorry about your husband.’
‘Did you know him?’
‘No, but—’
‘So you have no reason to be sorry. Unless you stabbed him.’
‘Eh? No, of course not.’
‘Then you are making meaningless comments about a man you know nothing about.’
‘I know a little.’
‘Such as?’
‘He was a good man, loved by many, who served his congregation with honour—’
‘He was a dog’s turd who left his wife and children with no money and no means of support, who came all the way here to find a new life, and spent not a moment thinking of the destitute conditions in which he left all of us. Why should he care? The Queen had decided he was worthy of his benefice, and he could do what he wanted, and that included pretending that he had no family, no children!’
For some reason, the woman suddenly burst into tears, sobbing most violently. I went to her and put a comforting arm about her, but she shrugged me off with an aggressive jerk of her shoulder. ‘Get away from me!’
I drew my hand away swiftly. There was an unconcealed menace in her voice that could not be ignored. She most certainly was a strange woman. ‘Did he give you no warning that he was going to desert you?’
‘What do you think? No! None! He seemed so happy with me. A devoted husband, a keen father. He was always affectionate with the boys. And then, one day, he told me he had to leave, and I would have to fend for myself.’
‘That was it?’
‘He said that there were good reasons, that he and I had grown apart, that he needed a new life. Some other guff. It came down to him being bored with me, and there was this new opportunity for him, so he could run away from us. After fourteen years, he chose to leave us and seek a new life, free of the cost of supporting us. What did he expect me to do? Sell the boys into work? Did he think I could sell my body on the streets? That would hardly earn enough to feed all of us for a week!’
I demurred, and she shot me a furious look. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! No one would pay me to service them. I’m an old maid now. And while we starved, he was here living in luxury. So I decided I would come and demand that he help us.’
To say that she was doing herself down was on the tip of my tongue. She was, at worst, a perfectly accommodating woman, from the look of her, and I was sure that Piers would be able to win her an introduction at the Cardinal’s Hat, but on reflection I felt she might deprecate my comments. Instead, I said, ‘How did you know where he was living?’
She gave a twisted smile. ‘The new rector was most helpful. He was appalled at how I had been treated, because he had himself been forced to go to Ilford and leave his own wife. But he had made arrangements for her to receive half his stipend while he was rector. That was the decent way to behave, naturally. He was thoroughly sympathetic to my plight, and told me where Peter was living now. As soon as he told me, I thought I could come here and demand that he help us. But I couldn’t leave the children behind, and it was a long way, so I didn’t think I could. Then Roger offered to come with us, and, well … It made sense to bring the youngest with me. I wanted to remind Peter of his responsibilities. We left the very next day, and walked all the way. As soon as we arrived, a fortnight ago, I went to the church and asked for his help.’
‘How did he react to that?’
She looked at me, and the tears began to well again. ‘He went mad with rage! If I had come here and tried to rob him, he could not have been more angry. No, he was worse than that: if I had said to him that I had told the Lord Chancellor I was still living with him, he could not have shown me such contempt and anger! I was scared, he was so angry. He raised his hand as
though to strike me, which he never did before, calling me a whore and a thieving witch, a harpy who demanded all and was never satisfied. Oh! It was terrible! I’ve never seen him so furious.’
‘There, there,’ I said.
Her hand slapped mine away, and she stood before me with real rage in her eyes. ‘Don’t say “There, there” as if this is all a silly maid making a fuss! My husband of fourteen years rejected me and my children!’ Then she collapsed, sobbing, to sit on the chest. ‘How could he do that? I gave him everything, and after all those years he threw me over!’
Having endured the lash of her tongue and a slap from her hand already, I made no comment. It seemed safer.
She rubbed her eyes with both hands viciously as if she could rub away her hurt. ‘So then I came back here and wondered what I could do.’
‘Not easy, I suppose; not in a small village like this,’ I said.
‘I am not without ability!’ she declared hotly.
‘No! I didn’t mean to say … that is, I—’
‘I saw the inn, and thought to myself that I could work there. The innkeeper has no wife, and I thought I could at least wash, cook, serve … do anything he wanted.’
She looked away then, and it was clear enough to me that her responsibilities probably did not end when the last customer was thrown from the door. I felt an instinctive sympathy for her. She had been forced to accept that, with no husband or means of her own, she must accept any offer. While she was not forced to offer herself to all the customers at the inn, she was still thrown into the humiliation of giving herself to the innkeeper in return for board and lodging for herself and her children.
‘Are you content there?’
‘It is better than living on the streets or in the woods,’ she said boldly, but there was a slight tremble to her bottom lip as she said it.
‘Do you have any idea why your husband would have turned against you like that?’
‘He was thinking of himself and didn’t pause to consider me or the boys. That is all there is to it,’ she said firmly.
The Dead Don't Wai Page 11
