Low Treason

by Leonard Tourney

  It was a small shop but very busy. Behind the counter stood the tobacconist. He was a solidly built jovial man in shirt sleeves and apron. He was holding a brass water pipe, filling the bowl with dark tobacco, and as he saw Matthew he grinned and motioned him to enter. Blue-gray smoke hung heavy in the air, a noxious mist. Matthew coughed and pressed through the tables and benches, most of which were occupied. The tobacconist offered Matthew a pipe. A penny, he cried, for a good smoke, for a head full of happiness. “Why,” exclaimed the man, “it’s the prince of physicians, tobacco ... an excellent purge for the head.”

  There was a confused buzz of conversation in the shop. Matthew felt giddy. In the comer two gallants had a woman wedged between diem trying to stuff a pipe into her mouth. She wore a rich gown and was bedecked with a quaint periwig and a ruff of the largest size. Her cheeks were dyed with surfling water. She was trying to push the pipe away and at the same time laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks, streaking the rouge. She had enormous breasts the nipples of which were just visible above her bodice, like pink flowers.

  The tobacconist thrust the pipe toward Matthew and repeated his invitation. Matthew declined, wishing that he had not entered. He tried to explain he wanted information, not a smoke, but upon his saying this the tobacconist’s expression became distant and his eyes suspicious. He sold tobacco, he said indignantly, not information. What did Matthew think he was, a spy?

  Undeterred, Matthew asked about Thomas Ingram. Had the tobacconist seen him? No, the man remembered no such apprentice. Besides, he said, all the jeweler’s men wore blue-and-gold liveries. He could not tell one from another, a Thomas from a John. Was Matthew sure he didn’t want to smoke? Only a penny.

  Matthew escaped into the street and breathed deeply of the air. It was dusk and the street was growing empty. He walked to the comer where earlier he had seen a cluster of young men gathered to play dice. They were still there. One was a short fellow with liverish complexion and quizzical eyes. He wore a filthy apron. He was not playing with the others. He was standing, watching from a distance. Some of the boys were apprentices of the jeweler’s. Matthew could tell by their liveries.

  “You, lad.”

  “Sir?”

  “Know you a Thomas Ingram, apprentice to Mr. Castell at the sign of the Basilisk?”

  The boy looked at Matthew blankly. “Has he done something wrong—this Thomas Ingram?”

  Matthew said no. “You do know him, then?”

  “I know his face, sir.”

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  The boy shrugged, looked about at the other boys, and then at his feet.

  “He lives above the jeweler’s shop,” said another apprentice, who had drifted over to join the conversation. This young man was older than the first, taller, and better dressed. He was well spoken and had a frank, open countenance.

  “I know that,” Matthew said, “but I have heard he has run off.”

  “Indeed,” said the young man.

  “He ran off to sea,” said a third apprentice, dressed in blue-and-gold. “That’s true,” announced a fourth. The others gave over their game and formed a circle about Matthew and the tall apprentice.

  “None of you knows where I can find him, then?” said Matthew, looking from face to face.

  “He has run off to sea,” insisted one of Castell’s apprentices. “No man has seen him for a week or more.” Matthew looked directly at the tall young man. “You have not seen him about, have you?”

  The apprentice hesitated. He appeared suddenly nervous and conscious of the other apprentices around him, for the circle was very close now and Matthew and he were at its center. The young man shook his head. No, he had not seen Thomas Ingram. He knew nothing about him, nothing at all.

  “I see,” said Matthew, with a fresh pang of disappointment, for he had hoped that he might hear a different story. He fished in his purse and found pennies for each of the boys. “Should you hear aught of Thomas Ingram, I am Matthew Stock of Chelmsford, come to lodge for the next few days at the Blue Boar, without Aldersgate. Do you know it?”

  “We do, sir,” cried the apprentices, practically in unison, regarding this middle-aged countryman in his plain suit and old-fashioned hat with eyes bright with curiosity and cunning.

  “Pass the word among your fellows. It’s Thomas Ingram I seek. Let it be known that I will be generous to him that brings word of his whereabouts.”

  “But we have said he has gone to sea,” protested the boy in Castell’s livery who had just pressed this explanation upon Matthew. The boy had pushed himself to the front of the circle and was staring up at Matthew with a mixture of injury and contempt. Matthew’s disregard for his information had clearly not sat well with him.

  “So I have been told, yet do not believe it,” replied Matthew, ignoring the apprentice’s impudent stare.

  The apprentice frowned but said nothing. Some of the others were drifting off, apparently satisfied that there was no more money to be had from this inquisitive stranger and eager to spend their pennies at some neighborhood tavern. Matthew watched them disperse and then made straight for his lodgings. It was very dark; there was but a faint glow in the west and the street was practically deserted. The houses he passed had a somber, alien look now that their color had gone, and not even their twinkling lights and the murmur of voices floating out through the open windows could give them the semblance of human habitations, crowded together as they were and made fast against the night.

  The houses gradually absorbed his attention, first as objects of interest, but slowly as causes of fear, for now he no longer thought about his conversation with the apprentices or his long day of deceit but about his own safety in this strange, dark city.

  He quickened his pace, and at every side street and alley he passed he was alert to who or what might be lurking in the shadows ready to snatch his purse or bludgeon him for the sheer joy of it. He did not relax his vigil until he saw the familiar outline of the Blue Boar ahead of him. By the time he reached its doors and pushed his way into its well-lighted and commodious interior he was nearly running, and puffing with labor.

  He found a neighbor from Chelmsford with, whom he had a good supper and long talk about home that quite drew his mind from his fears and concerns, and then he retired to his chamber, a plain but ample room with a four-poster bed, a goosedown mattress, and a window overlooking the street and away from the noise of the kitchen. He drove home the bolt to his door, placed his candle by the bed, and removed his coat, then his shoes, his neth-erstocks and doublet. He stood there in his shirt sniffing the air and trying to contain his dismay. Tobacco—his clothing reeked with it. He put his purse beneath his pillow along with the short dagger he wore customarily at his side when he visited the city. A serving girl had earlier brought a basin of clear water. He washed his hands, face, and neck with some strong-smelling soap, hoping that it would wash away the stench of the tobacco—his clothing would have to air itself the following day or the next. Then he dried himself vigorously and stood at the open casement.

  The soft night air flooded the room, caused the buckram curtains to quicken. From the street below he could hear the occasional shout of a passerby, the cry of the watch, a few horsemen, their animals beating a methodical tattoo on the cobblestones. He could see the angular shadows of buildings, in the distance the vague massiveness of Paul’s Church. Down the street someone had built a bonfire. A group of men were standing about it. He could hear their voices. He could see diffident flickers of light from lamps in the house opposite.

  He parted the curtains of the bed, blew out his candle, and crawled sleepily beneath the covers, leaving the casement open. Most of his countrymen feared the night air as a carrier of pestilence but Matthew had always felt it healthful and quieting to his spirit. He prayed briefly, staring up at the canopy of the bed. He slid slowly into a dumpish melancholy, a mood to which he often fell victim when he was away from home, apart from Joan and his own bed.
The house grew quiet. A wind had come up from somewhere and the walls creaked and the buckram curtains fluttered nervously. He was near sleep, his mind a welter of images of glaring eyes and city trulls in their elaborate ruff collars and half-naked breasts, when he was brought awake again by footsteps outside his door. He sat up in bed and listened. Someone tapped softly. He heard a muffled voice.

  He could not make it out, the voice. He rose quietly from his bed, snatched up his dagger, and approached the door.

  The tapping was repeated.

  “Who’s there?” he said hoarsely.

  There was no response.

  Matthew called again louder.

  “Are you the merchant from Chelmsford, sir? He who asked about Thomas Ingram, the apprentice at the Eye?”

  It was a young man’s voice. Matthew had heard it before.

  “I am he. What do you want of me?”

  “I have news of Thomas Ingram, if you please.”

  “How do you know me?”

  “You spoke to me this very7 day—in the street, not fifteen steps from the jeweler’s shop. My name is John Flint, an apprentice to Mr. Milton the scrivener.”

  “Which boy were you?”

  “Tall, sir, nigh to six foot.”

  Matthew remembered him. Tall, an intelligent, honest face, clean hands. Yet he had been passing his time there idly. That was a mark against him. Matthew was about to unbolt the door but then hesitated. All the house was asleep. He had nearly five pounds in his wallet .in gold and good white money and clothing and other gear worth another forty shillings. He would not be a fool and unbolt and end up murdered in his bed and matter for yet another tale of a countryman cozened of his purse and his life.

  “Who’s with you?” Matthew asked suspiciously.

  “None, sir. I swear no man stands here but myself, nor woman either. If I lie, let the Devil make water on my mother’s grave.”

  “Well, what is your news, pray, and be quick?”

  “Please open the door, sir. I would speak it to you to your face. I would not wake the house.”

  “You’ll not wake the house if you keep your voice as low as it is now. Speak and quickly, or I’ll call out for the watch from the window.”

  There was a long pause. Matthew waited, listening.

  “I knew Thomas Ingram well, better than I let on in the street. I feared to talk there.”

  “Why?”

  “The other ’prentices. Mr. Castell’s men. I was about to speak until one of them looked at me sternly. I know when to keep silent.”

  “Why, then, have you come to me?” ,

  There was another long pause.

  “Because of what I owe Thomas, sir. He helped me to a sixpence once when I had naught about me but my own flesh to feed upon.”

  “I see,” Matthew replied, listening carefully now. “Speak then. I’ll not open the door but I’ll hear you out.” “Something has happened to Thomas.”

  “His employer says he has run olf to sea.”

  “Never believe that, sir.”

  “Why should I not?”

  “Why, because it is a palpable lie, sir. Thomas had no more interest in going to sea than in catching the plague. All his talk was concluding his apprenticeship and returning to Chelmsford.”

  “He did not study books of voyagers? This what’s-his-name, Hakluyt, I think.”

  “Nay.”

  “But Mr. Castell’s apprentice—Roger, I heard his name to be—said that Hakluyt and voyages were all his study. ’ ’ “Roger? Tall and fair of face, with a devilish quick eye and a sugary tongue?”

  “The same.”

  “His story’s not worth a turd.”

  “He seemed most open and direct.”

  “He is a most practiced fabricator.”

  Matthew paused, satisfied now that John Flint had confirmed his own certain knowledge of Roger’s mendacity. The lad continued:

  “Where Thomas may be this instant I cannot say, but I would wage my life that there’s nothing dishonest in his flight. I saw him last a fortnight Thursday, pensive he was, something thick on his mind. I asked him for the burden, but he did no more than smile and claim it was something he had eaten, something to provoke the melancholy.” “The melancholy?”

  “You know, dumpishness, such as maidens are prone to, the green sickness.”

  “He said nothing of his plans?”

  “Nary a smidgen.”

  “Well then,” Matthew whispered impatiently, “what intelligence have you for me?”

  “Only this good counsel, sir, and it has cost me no little risk to myself to bring it to you. Take heed of whom you ask about young Thomas. Something’s afoot at the jeweler’s, I would swear to it.”

  “Is this thing something that bears a name?” “Doubtless, sir, though I know not what it may be.” “For your warning, then, my thanks.”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “One thing more. Thomas had a good friend, another apprentice. Ralph, of about the same years. Ralph would have known Thomas’s plans if anyone would, he and a girl Thomas had eyes for, a little thing named Mary—I know not her family name. Ralph lies in Newgate.”

  “The prison!” Matthew exclaimed. “For what crime?” “Why, for purse cutting or linen filching, or some like trifle.”

  “Who gave evidence against him?”

  “One of his fellows at Castell’s, now I think upon it. The constable of the parish came, made his charge, grabs young Ralph by the wrists, and off to Newgate he was as round as a hoop.”

  “And the girl, this Mary, what about her?”

  “She may have gone off with Thomas, sir, or dropped into the same hole he has. No one has seen her on the street for days.”

  “What was her business?”

  “A milliner’s helper. She was an honest gill.”

  11 Was, you say; what’s become of her?”

  “I have said. She has disappeared, yet honesty is like the sun. One minute it’s out, the next it’s besmirched with some filthy cloud or squall. By now some pimp may have her working the streets, her face buried with her virtue •beneath a foot of paint.”

  “I’ll go to Newgate the first thing in the morning. Ralph you said his name was?”

  “Ralph, sir, but I would watch where I walked. Newgate is the scurviest place this side of hell. Worse than Tyburn. They say the rats disdain it.”

  “I do not doubt it,” said Matthew.

  “I must go now, Mr. Stock. Pray remember my warning. Take good heed. Your inquiries kick up dust in someone’s face.”

  Matthew considered the warning. So he was kicking dust in someone’s face. He replied with resolve, “Then I shall watch where I step indeed, yet will I walk, though the Devil take offense at it.”

  Matthew told John Flint to wait, went to his bed, and withdrew his purse from beneath his pillow. He felt inside for some coins, found tuppence, and returned. He unbolted the door and peered into the passageway. John Flint was standing there looking at Matthew uncertainly. Matthew offered the tuppence but the boy refused it.

  “I came for friendship’s sake,” he said and went on down the stairs.

  Matthew shut the door and returned to bed. Somewhere in the city a clock struck a mournful succession of hours. It was midnight. He lay for a long time staring up into the canopy above him, much too excited to sleep, for there was a purpose to his being in London now, that was clear enough, and enemies about whom he must be very careful. One of these was certainly Roger, another was very likely the jeweler himself, who had seemed to encourage his apprentice in this overcurious fabrication about Hakluyt. What was behind these lies? Where was Thomas Ingram and why had he left the jeweler’s employ?

  Matthew pondered these questions for some time. He heard the clock strike one, but not two, for somewhere in between he prayed again, thought of Joan, and buried his face in the soft pillow that smelled of fresh grass and herbs and reminded him of his home. Sometime during that hour his reason, weary
of the day’s travail, lay down its burden before his imagination; there was a parade of loosely connected images—Thomas Ingram, Aretino’s filthy pictures, the jeweler’s shop, the Eye of the Basilisk—and finally there came sleep, profound and renewing.

  Three

  GERVASE CASTELL stood before the open casement, his room in darkness. He was staring out into the night and listening. It was very quiet, both in his house and in the garden. His cook lived in a hovel with her husband on a neighboring street, and Castell had sent his manservant to bed two hours before, so he had the satisfaction of knowing that it was his presence alone that filled the somber rooms of the house and competed with the glum spirits of the air for supremacy. Now a languorous tolling of a distant bell informed him it was midnight. Over the garden hung the aroma of moist earth and verdure, the sweetishness of rotting pears and quinces. The sky was a deep velvet setting for a fistful of paltry stars and a tenuous moon, canny like a courtesan’s brow.

  At length he heard what he had been waiting to hear, footfalls on the gravel path, then at the postern door a sharp, importunate knocking like a carpenter hammering a nail into a block.

  He lit the candle and descended the stairs, pausing before the door. Again came the knocking. In good time, Flores, he thought.

  “Who is it?”

  There was a hoarse whisper from the other side of the door. It was the gentleman from Madrid, the friend of the Basilisk.

  He unbolted the door and peered out into the night. But it was not Flores standing there. It was a taller, leaner man, wrapped up in a cloak, hat drawn down over his eyes, obscuring but the bottom half of the face.

  Castell’s visitor introduced himself as Miguel de Ortega—the Count of something, Castell did not catch the name. Ortega removed his hat with a gallant flourish. He looked about him impatiently, as though eager to be off again, explaining at the same time that he had had no trouble finding the jeweler’s house. Flores had given him directions and they had been quite clear, every twist and turn of the alley laid out with the precision of a navigator’s chart. Ortega had entered through the back gate of the garden, a small orchard of unhusbanded fruit trees, scrag-gly bushes, rank weeds and vines strangling what had once been a flower bed. No houses faced the alley and no constable’s watch was fool enough to patrol the lonely stretch after dark. Ortega said a lousy yellow bitch had barred her fangs at him but he had slit the creature’s gullet with a quick thrust and walked on.