by Peter Tonkin
The executioner pushed the edges of the shift wider sliding his fists under the woman's upstretched arms. He was brutally rough, perhaps to please the crowd or perhaps to revenge some failure by the beautiful, proud young woman to bribe or seduce more gentle handling out of him. The laces and straps across her shoulders tore allowing the whole of her top to fall down over her belly like an apron. There was a ragged cheer as her breasts were bared, and the executioner stood back with a leer, ready to send the first stroke broadly across back and front.
But then Tom was up on the platform between the whipmaster and his victim. Somehow, without his even realising he had drawn it, his Solingen blade was out and resting on the gaoler's throat. 'I cry clubs,' he bellowed, invoking the universal call to riot and revolt against authority. 'Clubs and freedom for the ladies.'
There was an instant of silence, then, 'Clubs,' cried Will and Ugo both together, each standing almost magically behind an official on the platform, daggers out and tickling ribs. Tom noted wryly that they at least had had the wit to pull up their masks. His eyes raked over the crowd of men, and a good number of eyes met his now. The line of whores waiting to be whipped suddenly lost their hang-dog expressions and started looking speculatively around. There was no doubt that a hot reward awaited anyone who saved their backs and got them out of here. But on the other hand, the three remaining guards looked threatening: their backs were at risk here too, for if the women went they would likely replace them at the whipping post. The situation teetered on the point of a dagger for an instant, then, 'Clubs,' bellowed a familiar voice, and Poley, masked but well-armed, appeared behind a guard and the crowd went wild.
Tom turned and unhooked Kate Shelton from the post. He did so with his left hand, holding the gaoler at bay with the rapier in his right. Left-handed, he caught the key Will tossed, and he handed it to her so that she could free herself. She took off the wrist-locks and the ankle-locks before she began to pull up the front of her dress. And all the time, her eyes were fixed on his. Wide, excited, burning.
When the clamour in the courtyard died sufficiently for them to exchange a word or two, she asked as she gathered the cherrytipped creaminess of her bosom and tucked it back within her bodice, 'And who do I have to thank for saving my tender back? Master ...'
'Musgrave,' he answered, his mouth feeling dry of a sudden. 'Tom Musgrave.'
Chapter Nineteen - Kate
All the other women in the whipping line, accompanied by a good number liberated from the Whore's dungeon, were heading out past the helpless guards, borne by the largely exultant crowd. Tom and Kate were running in, deeper into the inner corridors and recesses of the place. Not for an instant had she seemed to doubt who Tom was - or what. They had become confederates as suddenly and as absolutely as had he and Ugo, long ago and far away. Ugo, who made the two of them a threesome, bringing up the rear. Will had vanished with Poley, his associates and the rest.
'I have not yet met the Spaniard, but I know which one he is,' she said as they ran.
'How?'
'I have seen the Black Book. It records visitors as well as everything else. And you can imagine, I am certain, just how many Armada men have had visitors of late.'
'And how did you get to see the book?'
'Vanity. The Bookkeeper's. He believed like most men that there is something irresistible to women hidden under even the most repulsive and disgusting exterior. And that a full understanding of the weight of his great responsibilities would make his personal qualities utterly irresistible. I allowed him to live with his arrant self-deception until I had what I wanted then I roundly disabused him.'
'That nearly cost you dear,' observed Tom, thinking of the brutal manner in which she had been prepared for her brutal flogging.
'When I think of the alternative he had in mind,' she said, 'ten times the whipping would have been a Cheapside bargain.'
Kate knew the inside of the Bridewell as though she had walked every corridor. Hence, thought Tom shrewdly, the vengeful anger of the gaoler with the whip. And they said that Vanity's true name was Woman. 'Hist!' she said, slowing her purposeful rush. 'Down here. And there's a guard.'
Tom went first, tip-toeing down a narrow flight of steps into a fetid little tunnel so low he had to stoop. The tip of his high-held rapier scraped along the stony roof. It would have struck sparks from the flinty stone of the place except that the whole tunnel was oozing water. Some twenty feet down the running tunnel was a narrow doorway into a small guard-chamber. The disturbance aloft had not yet made itself known down here so the guard was sitting at their ease - or rather they seemed to be so. Tom froze, scarcely breathing, and watched the three men grouped around the table. A trencher of food was piled in front of them and scraps of it lay on the table before them, but none of them was eating. Instead they were hunched, heads close, as though in the midst of a whispered conversation. And yet they were not talking. A lamp close beside them was flickering, almost guttering, and the dancing shadows from it made them seem to be moving. And yet, he realised, with a tightening of his stomach, they were not moving. And were never like to do so again. Feeling the silent stirring of Ugo's arrival at his shoulder, he stepped into the cramped little chamber. None of the guards looked at him.
'They're all dead,' he said to Ugo, and Kate coming in behind the Dutchman caught her breath. Tom crossed to the nearest, seeing the great key hanging from his belt. Ugo caught up the candle. Kate led the way down the corridor to the door at the end.
As the heavy portal creaked wide, Ugo stepped in and Tom followed at his shoulder to be confronted with the strangest of sights. A tall, gaunt man, chained and dressed in rags, knelt astride a trencher piled with food, frozen in the act of fighting off four equally gaunt, equally famished-looking prisoners.
'Help me,' he said in thickly accented English as he turned and glared into the light. 'Help me whoever you are. They must not eat this. It is poisoned and they are too famished even to care.'
Kate darted in and caught up the trencher, whirling it back out of the door. The four starving men seemed to sag. 'You were wise, master, and you have saved your friends,' said Tom. 'The guards stole the best of your repast by the look of it and they have paid with their lives for their greed.' Kate was back. She held more keys. 'Don Diego de Villalar?' she asked.
'I hold no rank, señorita, but yes, I am Diego de Villalar .'
'Then I have come to set you free.'
'At what price?'
'Life, for a start. These four are like to kill you if you remain when we go. Perhaps you have all had enough of living, though. And advice. You are after all, an expert in some black arts are you not? Known to Señor Perez?'
'His friend who carries two swords,' added Tom. 'The friend who sent you the food.'
'Yes. Young Señor Domenico Salgado. I would enjoy another little talk with him.' And so, at last, the mysterious assassin D.S. had a name.
And Tom had another ally to add to the list below Poley, who also wanted constant watching.
The central courtyard of the Bridewell was deserted as the four figures stole across it, but there was wreckage speaking eloquently of a riotous mob chased hither recently by a number of angry guards. 'What has happened here?' asked Villalar as he limped through the debris borne between Ugo and Kate while Tom led the way with his rapier out.
'To come down and rescue you,' said Kate, with something of a laugh in her voice, 'our brave leader there led a riot and released half the bawds in London.'
'It is not that I am not most grateful,' said the Spaniard. 'But could you not have saved one for me? Just one flawed jewel? It has been six years and more, and the señorita here, even though she serves but as a crutch, is setting my blood afire.'
'Indeed?' said Kate. 'I had heard much of the gallantry of the true Dons. And now I experience it for myself. A crutch. A crutch, forsooth. I'd rather have taken my whipping and let the old goat rot.' And yet, for all her words seemed shocked and bitter, she still held him firmly
and led him surely. But the wry words were scarcely out of her mouth before their luck ran out.
'Who goes there?' called a raucous voice, and a sturdy body thrust itself into the gape of the gate. Behind the solid outline of his shoulder glinted freedom in the vision of the glittering river at the foot of the Bridewell Stairs. The four of them could hardly have looked more guilty. The trull who caused the riot, the roaring boy who led it, a Dutchman and a Don but lately taken from the Armada Hole.
'Shoot him,' said Tom to Ugo.
Ugo pulled out his wheel lock under cover of Diego's sagging body and cocked it against the pull of the wheel lock. He brought the pistol up, but just at the very instant he did so, the Reverend Word-ofthe-Lord Parris appeared at his shoulder, calling, 'Here. Here they are...'
'Shoot him,' said Kate in a vicious undertone. 'Oh please, my brave pistoleer, shoot Parris. Right through his cod-piece if you can take the aim.'
Inevitably, Ugo hesitated, and the moment was gone. Parris's shouts brought half a dozen guards back and suddenly even the sparkle of the Thames was blotted by their forms.
But then, almost miraculously, Parris's shouts brought others back as well; for suddenly both he and the guards were swamped by a wave of men and women. 'It's Will,' cried Tom. And so it was. Will, Poley and his men, together with the more spirited of the girls they had rescued, had been waiting for Kate, Ugo and Tom. The guards, bested twice in one evening, broke and ran at once, leaving the Reverend Parris alone and badly outnumbered. He remained, dazed and stumbling at the top of the Bridewell Stairs as Tom led his little band out on to the low wooden platform. There they were welcomed with a rousing cheer which almost drowned the sound of Kate shoving Parris over the low rail on the east side and down into the slime of the Fleet Ditch. And Tom's wry words to the Spaniard. 'There, señor, you spoke too soon. It seems that we had saved you not one flawed jewel but an embarrassment of riches.'
The lads who rowed the wherries fell in with the adventure with an alacrity that was part of the tradition and the clocks had scarcely struck seven before the band - a dozen or so in all - were crowding up the Goat Stairs on to the Bankside where most of the girls lived their professional lives. Tom, Kate, Poley, Will and Ugo took the Don Diego to the Elephant and it was, perhaps, fortunate that Mistress Constanza had taken her Italian cards elsewhere for the evening. But the Elephant was only a stopping-off point where Diego was given the chance of a wash, a shave and a change of clothes. And if he needed the lingering help of two of the girls to assist him, why no one begrudged him, as long as he had the strength.
Will departed almost at once. 'We've a replacement now to double as Mercutio and the Prince,' he said. 'The play is doing roaring business. Two houses a day, the better part of three thousand souls - I've never seen the like - and Master Henslowe's saying he is thinking of a full ten-day run. And in the meantime I'm to get the next play down. It's an old piece about Sir Thomas More he wants me to fix as swiftly as I can and then I'll try something new again. But in the meantime I must write and write and write ...'
Then Ugo became restless. 'I never like to leave the Rooms for too long,' he said, his voice low. 'And there's too many know about the gun-smithing for me to sit easy. If you've no objection, Tom ...' and off he went. But for all his virtuous, sensible talk, one of the brightest and liveliest of the grateful girls followed him out through the door, and Tom smiled, thinking Ugo would be lucky to see his own bed in Blackfriars tonight. Or would that be unlucky ...?
Poley leaned in close. 'When the Don gets back we've one more call to make before they close the City Gates.'
'Does it need all of us?' asked Kate, to whom bodily risks and high adventure seemed to have lent a considerable appetite - one that even the shock of hearing Julius Morton was dead couldn't quite drive away. She stuck Tom's new dagger in her pottage and speared a chunk of beef which she proceeded to nibble daintily - she had become very dainty after he had showed her what the German blade could do.
'Aye,' said Poley. 'I've a man the Don must meet and I need Tom to see what they do and to guard our backs and although I know you would be better at Scadbury House or Hunsdon House - or even, God save the mark - at Nonesuch, I doubt you'll leave us alone this night.'
'You have the right of it,' she said. 'But now we have a little leisure and not too many ears, Poley, can you whisper something of this man I risked my back - and a good deal more, I think - to rescue? He says he is nameless and of little or no account. And yet he carries himself more like a courtier than a commoner.'
'And speaks English after his fashion,' said Tom. 'Not many Spaniards do that.'
Poley hesitated, looking round. Then, in the face of the combined enquiry of their four wide eyes, he began to give them details in a most unaccustomed fashion. 'He was Perez's man. When Perez was the King's personal advisor. He was landed then, and wealthy. But when Perez needed a poisoner, it was to Diego of Villalar he turned. And when Perez was forced to flee, Diego would not leave his family. For which crime he was brought to court, stripped of rank and honour and made a galley slave. There were many slaves in the galleys of the Armada and many of them were Spanish criminals. Our justice made no discrimination between the captains who laid the plans and the galley slaves that pulled the oars. And so he is here now and at our beck. The Master of all the Masters of Spain in the art of poisoning ...'
Kate laid down the dagger at that, and Tom thought the information must have stopped her appetite at last. It may have stopped it for pottage, but the rich stew was followed by warden pears preserved in syrup and served with a syllabub.
'But Perez like as not knew of his old friend's fate,' said Tom, thoughtfully. 'And when he looked over the lists of the Armada men - no doubt at the Council's own request, and if not their's at Lord Essex's - he knew the name at once. And so he has called upon Don Diego in the past, to discuss matters of health, security, herbs and poisons. And sends his new young Master in the Dark Arts to see the old man, and perhaps, to bring him a timely rest from the sad burdens of living.'
'The old man's worked that out,' said Kate. 'And has a score to settle with Perez now; and with his creature Salgado of the two swords. And, perhaps, with whoever is currently employing him. So our old enemy is now our new enemy's enemy. And our enemy's enemy is our friend.'
'For as long as it suits him,' said Tom. 'Have you read much of Machiavelli?'
'Who?' asked Kate, all innocence. She wrinkled up her nose in apparent distaste at the perfidy they were discussing and Tom thought the conversation must at last have stilled her appetite. But instead she caught up the horn spoon she was also sharing with Tom. She dug into the fragrant richness of the pears and syllabub ecstatically. Then she saw Tom looking at her and grinned. 'Heart and stomach of a man,' she said. 'Though not, like Her Majesty, of a king.'
If Kate regretted her titanic supper later, she never said so. And she had good reason to regret it. As soon as Don Diego de Villalar returned, Poley swept them out of the Elephant and into the gathering darkness. The Spaniard persisted in leaning upon Kate and indeed he had need to. Years as a galley slave followed by years in fetters were like to have crippled any man - but a fierce, independent intelligence burned behind that lean, angular face, and it was clear to Tom at least that the old man had used every opportunity to keep his strength and vigour up. Vigour, he noted, that not even the attentions of the two bawds who washed him had done much to dissipate. And, of course, a good measure of the Elephant's best pottage and finest claret had gone some way to strengthening him into the bargain. And someone in the depths of the fine old inn had found him a stick, for Spaniard or no, he was clearly a fine, witty, kindly and grateful old man, with a range of respected and popular friends.
They found a wherry at the Goat Stairs big enough to accommodate all of them, and the wherrymen rowed them across the river to the Cold Harbour Stairs. These stairs were unusual among the city's stairs for they mounted into a narrow doorway instead of a broad street or landing place.
Poley went up first, as intimately acquainted with this place, clearly, as he was with the ant's nest of the Steelyard. Through the Cold Harbour Gate he led them, past the warehouses that did their best to contain chilled and fresh goods with ice and cold stores, into the rabbit warren behind. Here were the spice merchants whose wares preserved the meats that the ice could not protect. And, behind them, the dyers and others whose trades depended on plants and potions of all sorts from all sources. Here, rubbing jowls with each of them, there sat a little apothecary's shop.
What seemed small on the outside was in fact deep and cavernous within. The smells in the street were heady to say the least, nutmeg and clove and cinnamon wafting in an instant away to be replaced by urine, acid, indigo and woad. In the apothecary's they were overpowering - not least because among the herbs, tinctures, tisanes and compounds the apothecary and his assistants made and kept in here, there were also cages of assorted birds, mice, rats, cats and dogs.
The apothecary was a tall, bright-eyed old man whose hair and beard were almost as long as Diego Villalar's. He recognised Poley at once and waved his assistants away into the depths of the shop. His eyes raked expressionlessly over the unusual collection Poley had brought with him, but his eyebrows almost vanished into his white hair when Poley, apparently thinking nothing of the courtesy, introduced Villalar.
'Don Diego de Villalar is dead,' said the apothecary, his voice surprisingly strong, issuing from such a seemingly frail body.
'Not so.' Don Diego was well able to speak for himself, though Poley had begun to answer. 'A recent guest of Her Majesty at Bridewell Palace. That is all. And who do I have the honour of addressing?'
'Master Apothecary Gerard,' the old man bowed.
'So now,' said Poley, brusquely, 'we have together two fine minds for answering some questions that have been taxing some important intelligences. And ours as well, come to that.' He pulled out a satchel that had been appearing and disappearing through the evening, and threw it open. Out of it on to the boards of Apothecary Gerard's table tumbled a series of bundles, large and small. All were carefully wrapped and labelled - except one. 'That looks like the present of food but lately sent to me,' said the Spaniard.