Free [Roger the Chapman 03] - The Hanged Man by Kate Sedley Page A

recalled where, and in what circumstances, I had heard the voice of Jenny Hedge's visitor before. Until that moment, I would have deemed it impossible that it was one and the same, for the voice of Margaret Walker's nocturnal caller during my illness had been muted; nothing more, I would have sworn, than an indistinguishable murmur to my straining ears. Now, however, I realized it must have sounded plainer than I thought, for I knew beyond doubt that on both occasions, the speaker had been the same man.

Chapter Seven

    There was leek pottage for dinner, heavily laced with garlic to disguise the lack of other flavours at this dead time of the year; but, eaten with thick slabs of oatmeal bread, it warmed and filled the belly. In addition, there was ale for me and verjuice for the women, made from last autumn's harvest of crab-apples. While we ate, I recounted the history of my morning, but said nothing of the Hodges' visitor, nor of my suspicions concerning him.
    Instinct told me that I should learn no more if I did. I should be treated to vacant stares and a fiat denial of any such caller at the cottage. And I had been ill enough at the time for the incident to be attributed to my delirious fancy.
    I did, however, ask Margaret Walker about her father's return, and to all my questions she answered with apparent frankness.
    'His boots were thick with dust,' she said, 'as though he had been walking for days on tile road. But as for getting any sense out of him as to where he had been, I told you before, that was well-nigh impossible. All he would say, when he was able to say anything, was that he had been captured by slavers and taken to Ireland.
    Never a word would he vouchsafe about what part of Ireland, how he had escaped from bondage, what ship had brought him home.' She shrugged and gave a sad, wry smile. 'But of course he couldn't. He was never in Ireland.
    For that's the conclusion we were all forced to in the end.' I nodded. 'So Alderman Weaver believes, and confirmed your opinion that no one would have wanted to buy an old and injured man. Slavers, he maintained, would not have beaten a captive about the head in such a brutal fashion as to cause him to lose his wits.'
    Lillis, who had eaten very little, being too busy watching me with her slanting eyes, asked softly, 'Then where was he? And why should he believe he had been taken to Ireland?'
    Margaret put in swiftly, to save me the embarrassment of doubting her father's word, 'Perhaps he didn't. Perhaps he knew where he had been and why, but for reasons of his own did not wish anyone else to know. Although,' she added, encountering her daughter's derisive smile, 'I am inclined to the view that he really remembered very little of anything that had happened to him. Even events prior to his disappearance were hazy in his mind, and it was necessary to go back many years before he was able to recall things with any clarity. He knew that he had lived with Lllis and me, in this cottage, which was why he returned here and not to his home in Bell Lane, but that was four years and more ago.'

    I finished my stew and laid down my spoon, resisting Margaret's attempts to ladle me out a second helping. I drank my ale, conscious of a sudden thirst, before asking, 'And there's nothing else you can tell me which might shed any light on where Master Woodward had been?' I knew by her expression that something had puzzled her. She sucked her teeth thoughtfully, clearing them of bits of food, staring straight ahead but seeing nothing. I waited patiently, content to let her take her time.
    'It was his clothes,' she said at last. Her eyes swivelled round to meet mine. 'They weren't his. They weren't any that I'd ever seen before.'
    'Someone had robbed him of his, perhaps,' I suggested, when she paused. 'Or his had been torn and bloodied so badly when he was captured that he had to be found new ones to wear. There are probably half a dozen reasons.' She nodded slowly. 'Maybe, but these were