Death and the Chapman Read Free Page B

approached Alderman Weaver’s house in Broad Street from the back and the narrow confines of Tower Lane. There was a little walled garden, as I remember, with a pear and apple tree, both thick with blossom, a bed of herbs and simples, a border of flowers along one wall and a lean-to privy. Marjorie Dyer produced a key from the heavy bunch attached to her belt and unlocked the door which led into the kitchen.
    This was stone-flagged and strewn with rushes. An iron pot suspended over the fire was obviously full of a stew intended for the family’s supper. An iron frying-pan, a mortar-and-pestle, various ladles and spoons, basins and ewers were grouped together on the wooden table. Sides of salted beef and mutton hung from hooks in the ceiling. It reminded me of my mother’s kitchen, except that it was much bigger. Well, let me be honest. We only had one living-room in my mother’s house. I had never known the luxury of a parlour.
    This house, which was several storeys high, no doubt had a buttery and a hall as well as a parlour. And certainly more than one bedchamber. But there again, I knew nothing of bedchambers any more than I did of parlours. At home, I had slept on a truckle bed in one corner of the kitchen, and at the Abbey, in a dormitory with the other novices. This was the first gentleman’s dwelling I had ever been in.
    ‘Sit yourself down.’ Marjorie Dyer nodded towards a stool near the hearth, covered with a red and green cloth. ‘Leave your pack by the door and I’ll look at it later. I’m short of needles and thread, if you have any.’
    I assured her that I had and thankfully slipped the heavy bundle from my back. I had been on my feet almost since sunrise and was beginning to feel tired. I slumped on to the stool she had indicated, keeping well away from the fire. Its heat was intense and the smoke was making my eyes water. As my companion bustled around, she appraised me with her shrewd brown eyes.
    ‘You’re a big lad. Nearly as tall as King Edward, I’d guess. And they say he stands over six feet.’
    ‘Have you ever seen him, then?’ I asked her, but with less curiosity than I might have displayed if the warmth hadn’t begun to make me so drowsy. Marjorie handed me a mazer of ale, and the taste of the cold, bitter liquid went some way towards reviving me.
    ‘A glimpse. Ten years ago when he visited Bristol. Very tall and very handsome, fair-haired, like you, and eyes the same shade of blue. The women all went wild about him.’ She grinned. ‘I reckon there were a few cuckolded husbands during that visit. They say he’s a great womanizer.’
    Her tone of voice seemed to imply a question and I glanced up, shaking my head. ‘I’m still a virgin,’ I said. ‘There wasn’t much chance to be anything else at the Abbey.‘ I had given her a brief history of my life while we were walking from Marsh Street.
    She gave a chuckle which slid into a full-throated laugh. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’
    I shrugged. ‘Oh, I know there are stories about religious houses, and I’ve no doubt there’s a certain amount of laxity in some of them. But we had a particularly strict Master of Novices.’
    It was her turn to shrug plump shoulders. ‘You’re young. There’s no hurry.’ Her face shadowed again momentarily, as she cleared a space for me at the table. ‘Although, I shouldn’t say that, I suppose. Youth alone is no guarantee of longevity.’ She motioned me to bring my stool over and went to spoon some of the stew on to a plate.
    I got up and, carrying my now half-empty mazer in one hand and the stool in the other, I crossed the room and settled myself at the table. ‘I expect the plague will be rife again this summer.’
    Marjorie put the plate of steaming meat and vegetables in front of me. There was also some black bread, a piece of goat’s milk cheese wrapped in a dock leaf, and a dish of those little green and white leeks which can be eaten raw.
    ‘I wasn‘t necessarily