“You strangled the guard at St. Andrew’s tonight. You could have used the ink cloth to put him to sleep instead.”
“A paternoster was more expedient. Besides, I needed the ink for Foxcroft.”
Bianca glanced around for Meddybemps and Fisk. She appeared to be very alone.
“The second boy,” said Bianca. “You strangled him.”
“Something I do regret. I had dropped the cloth and he was waking. I am sorry if he felt pain.” For a second the printer was almost contrite, but he roused out of his remorse.
“Was it your intent to hang Fisk like the rest?”
The corner of Naylor’s mouth turned up as if she had found him out. “Someone better came along.” He looked at Father Foxcroft and gave another tug on the rope to make his captive squeal. “Now enough of this.”
Bianca desperately delayed. “You cannot murder this man and think that you will not be punished for it.”
“It troubles me not,” he said, “I expect to pay for his life by sacrificing mine. I have no illusions. There is no escape for me.” The printer’s demeanor was one of cold calculation and resignation. He thoroughly believed that his cause was righteous. He showed no faith in his fellow man to exact justice, and he had no patience (or was this also a lack of faith?) that God would satisfactorily judge the man’s soul.
“Release the rope or I will scream,” threatened Bianca.
Clement Naylor smiled, unconcerned. He reached above Father Foxcroft’s head and pulled on the rope, lifting the priest several inches off the ground. The priest began a fierce struggle, a final dance with the noose.
Bianca could not stand by and watch the man suffer. As Naylor reached above his head for more leverage, Bianca tightened her grip on the dagger’s handle. With a piercing cry Bianca rushed at Clement Naylor and drove the blade into his arm.
Stunned, the printer clapped one hand to his injury. His strength was impressive, for he did not let go of the rope. He looked at his hand covered in blood.
He said nothing in response to Bianca’s attack. The sleeve of his jerkin grew saturated, but the wound seemed to have no effect on him. He turned his back on her and with both hands heaved on the rope bringing Father Foxcroft partway on to the pulpit roof.
Bianca stared aghast as Naylor ignored the bleeding and continued to hoist Foxcroft across the roof, inching him towards the cross. In desperation, Bianca ran forward a second time. She aimed for his outer thigh—a wound that would slow him; but at the last second, the printer turned to face her, and she stabbed him in his inner thigh.
The reaction was immediate. Clement Naylor screamed. He hunched forward and gripped his leg--and let go of the rope. The priest slid off the roof, the slack rope trailing behind him, and struck the ground beside the printer.
Naylor’s wound was mortal. Bianca knew she had sliced an area where blood would drain in a matter of minutes. She had once witnessed the quick demise of a longshoreman with a similar gash. The longshoreman had bled copiously. Naylor would be no different.
Around the perimeter of the courtyard, shutters flew open and the muted glow of candles shone within. Inquiring shouts echoed off the walls of the stone cathedral and built to a manic crescendo.
Bianca answered back, calling for help. Soon the entire courtyard reverberated with voices and the clamor of shutters opening and closing, with doors creaking and the agitated stirrings within.
Despite his heavy bleeding, Clement Naylor retained enough strength and wherewithal to pull his dagger from its sheath. He staggered, already feeling the effects of his blood loss, and looked at Bianca.
“I do not fear my death,” he said, dropping to his knees. “I fear the world that is left behind.”
Bianca stepped back. She didn’t trust that the printer couldn’t still lunge for her. But his last act of life was not meant for her.
Mustering one final breath, Clement Naylor raised the dagger over his head, and plunged it into Father Foxcroft’s heart.
Chapter 35
By the time Meddybemps and Fisk arrived, Bianca was already explaining to a crowd of stunned residents what had happened. Most were hastily dressed, without doublets and hosen, wearing heavy gowns, their legs unconventionally bare. Constable Berwick had been summoned and Bianca requested that Patch be found, but likely he was still rounding up men to guard Castle Baynard’s vulnerable parish churches.
Bianca was quite aware of the dubious position she now found herself--a woman with a bloody knife and two dead men lying at her feet. She admitted to stabbing Clement Naylor twice in an effort to stop him from hanging Father Foxcroft and explained the printer’s final act of retribution.
People stared gape-mouthed up at the crucifix with the rope still looped around it. They shook their heads at the lengths some men take to murder another. But Bianca would save Naylor’s motivation and their final conversation for once the constables arrived.
Meddybemps eyed the printer, slumped over the body of Father Foxcroft.
“It appears you have some story to recount,” the streetseller said. His eyes went to the bloody dagger in her hand.
Bianca cleaned it off on her apron and put it back in its sheath. “I had to get his attention.”
Meddybemps’s brows jumped. “Indeed.”
Bianca’s gaze dropped to Fisk staring at his dead mentor. She was sorry there was nothing covering the bodies. She knew it must have come as a shock to him, realizing the depth and nature of Naylor’s hatred. “I am sorry Fisk.” She struggled thinking what to say. She didn’t know whether Fisk would accept Clement Naylor’s fate and her part in it, or reject her as another murderer. It would serve no use explaining that she had not meant to kill him, only stop him. It was a subtlety she didn’t expect his young mind could grasp. But Fisk was wise beyond his years, and his loyalty to Bianca was unshaken. In fact, it grew because of her courage.
“You would not have stabbed him if you didn’t have to,” said Fisk. He dragged his eyes from the disturbing scene and looked up at her. “I am sorrier for you.”
The weight of killing someone was a burden reserved for the unfortunate few. How one carries that weight is a personal choice, a choice that might change over time, but the weight is never lifted for those with a conscience. Bianca glanced at Meddybemps, who kept his counsel, and in the matter of murder probably always would.
In as much a show of affection as it was relief, Bianca embraced her young friend, grateful for his safety and his understanding. She held him and the emotional strain of the past few weeks, and year, came to the surface, cowing her to tears. Life can be extinguished in a matter of seconds; its brevity a stark reminder to love just a little longer, just a little harder. Bianca reached for Meddybemps and the three clung together, finding solace in an inconstant world, until Bianca’s tears turned to smiles.
As before, word traveled fast in Castle Baynard Ward. Soon Constable Berwick’s boisterous voice announced his arrival, ordering people to step aside and let him through. Having earlier shown a remarkable lack of responsibility, he now threw himself into his office with such vigor that it thoroughly rankled Bianca’s sense of propriety. She refused to give her full account until Constable Patch, her “employer” and “colleague” as she called him, had been found and could also hear.
Her refusal was one small slight lobbed at a man who deserved a cartload.
But soon enough, Patch arrived. Constable Berwick, whose patience had been readily tried by then, remarked, “Well, sirrah, I see you finally got yourself here.”
“If ye had done yer jobs placing guards like I tolds ye, I would have been here long ago,” responded a tired Patch, but who still had enough in him to consider throttling the man.
Constable Berwick turned to Bianca. “Now that the requested party is here, suppose you tell us your account?”
So, Bianca told them how the night had unfolded, how she had seen a pamphlet printed by Clement Naylor in support of Lutheran idea
s and Robert Barnes. “When Father Wells told me that Foxcroft had given over a former priest who had extolled church reforms, I remembered my conversation with Naylor. There was no indication that he might have been behind this, except I know from past experience that betrayal is an insidious poison. It taints the betrayer as well as the betrayed.
“I went to the printer’s shop to see if he was there, to see if there was any merit to my thinking this.” She hesitated before admitting she had broken in to his bed chamber--certain such boldness would be cause for scorn. There was some tittering, but they let her continue.
“He was not home.” She waited for them to realize the significance of his absence. If a man is not in his bed at such a small hour—where was he? “I took the opportunity to look through his shop. And I noticed a peculiar smell.” She pulled the two cloths from her pouch and held one up. “I found this cloth at the site of the second boy’s murder at St. Benet’s. I kept it because I had never smelled anything like it.” Bianca handed the cloth to Constable Berwick who ran it under his nose. Immediately he opened his eyes registering his distaste and handed it to Patch.
“This,” said Bianca holding up the second rag, “is what I found in Clement Naylor’s shop.”
Again, Berwick and Patch sniffed the square of linen.
“I feels a bit queer,” commented Patch.
Bianca nodded. “I believe there is some element in this printing ink that makes a person queasy, that quiets them to the point of sleep, even death if they breathe too much of it.”
“That would explains how he managed to get his victims to the murder sites and hangs them,” said Patch.
“He was a strong man, and quite agile,” said Bianca. “My thought is that he came to St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe with the intention of committing a third murder. But he was stymied by the presence of a guard. He strangled him with a paternoster.”
“But how did he get Foxcroft?” asked Berwick.
“I believe he either snuck into the church and found Foxcroft alone, or else Foxcroft left the church—perhaps to go home. Either way, Naylor subdued the man he blamed for betraying Robert Barnes and decided to exact his own revenge, rather than hope for Foxcroft’s downfall. There is a note pinned to Foxcroft’s front that I first saw in Naylor’s shop. Whether he planned to kill Foxcroft tonight or whether the opportunity presented itself, and he seized it, I do not know.
“In the end, Clement Naylor got what he wanted—Father Foxcroft’s death; but he failed to execute the man’s ultimate humiliation—hanging him from the cross where Robert Barnes had gained the attention of an entire world.”
“But what about the boys?” asked Patch. “Who were the victims at St. Mary Magdalen’s and St. Benets?”
“We know that the first boy’s name was Peter—that is all. And I believe the second boy’s name is Matthew,” said Bianca, looking at Fisk, whose eyes filled remembering his recent friend. “Naylor lured him to his print shop in the false belief that he would become his apprentice.”
“Has he a surname?” asked Berwick.
Bianca looked at Fisk who shook his head. “That is all we know for now,” she said. “It is possible that we may never learn anything more about these boys.”
Before long, the sun would banish this nefarious night, with all its grim murders and weary players. The air, heavy with devilment, would vanish with the day. And with good discourse friends would listen and commiserate. They would smooth the rough edges of grief, soften the harsh candor of human beastliness.
With the crowd dispersing and the fresh bloom of excitement faded, Bianca returned Fisk to his mother, Meg. Meddybemps returned to his bed. Constable Patch and Constable Berwick contented themselves with matters of office. And the scourge that had befallen Castle Baynard Ward was over.
With night cautiously giving leave, Bianca descended the stairs at Paul’s Wharf where she found a lone boatman asleep in his skiff, his wool cloak his blanket, a thick book for his pillow. He must have heard her, for he rose without a word, and steadied the boat as she stepped on board. She was too tired to think much of his quiet manner or how the river became so smooth that they seemed to float above it. Gone was the lingering apprehension that accompanied her whenever she rode across the river. Her fatigue dulled her memories of that fateful night nearly a year ago, so that she felt a passive acceptance of all that was, and of all that may be.
She dropped a penny in the boatman’s cup and stepped onto the wet stairs with the river sloshing over them. Careful not to slip, she climbed to the landing and had only taken a couple of steps, when a strange recognition washed over her and she turned to face the skiff. The boat was gone, vanished. She searched the Thames as far as she could see. But the river was deep and dark, and she always kept her secrets.
Bianca ambled home and it was with great relief when she turned the corner in Gull Hole and smelled the acrid stink of her neighbor’s chicken coop. She stopped to filch an egg and let herself into her room of Medicinals and Physickes. Though the sun would soon rise, Bianca planned to spend the day in bed. She desired nothing more than a few hours of sleep.
She took a breath of her room’s unique odors and closed her eyes, glad to be home. She shut the door and left the shutters closed, wanting the room dark even though it would be a rare day of brilliant sun. Her shoes and stockings were left in a pile as she stripped down to her smock. When at last she fell into bed, her body throbbed with weariness, but her heart was at peace.
As she lay there drifting into light slumber, her mind gradually emptied of all the frets and fears that had trailed her so doggedly. The sensation of falling to sleep, that odd, descent into numb awareness, dragged her down, and pulled her under. She dreamt of Hobs and a smile tickled her lips. She saw him parade past, stepping across her chest like she was nothing more than a cushion beneath his paws. His tail he held high; his black tiger stripes sailed on like a galleon’s flag.
She smiled watching him go by, and remembering his swagger and inexplicable appeal. He was just a cat, her grimalkin, an opportunist that had found dependable food and shelter. He could have left anytime he wanted, but he never did. Her cheek twitched as she imagined the soft touch of his whiskers and heard his quiet breathy sniff and purr. Brushing it away, she turned over to snuggle back to sleep.
A second later, her eyes opened. She listened, blinking at the empty chest where she had laid Hobs’s body. She rolled onto her back, and this time felt a heavy weight compress her lungs. Suddenly she was besieged with Hobs rubbing his face against hers.
Bianca cried his name. She sat up, expecting this vision to fade as dreams always do.
But Hobs did not disappear.
Chapter 36
A month later—
Warm days had settled in, taking precedence over cold ones. With heavy cloaks and thick woolen garb stashed away, the citizens of this fair city moved with a lightness of spirit that only the first inkling of spring could manage to evoke. Puddles shrank and sparrows chirped. Laundry stretched from lines between buildings, the smocks and hosen dancing in the breeze. Pendulous yellow catkins hung from willows along the South Bank, and the fields in Paris Gardens turned green almost overnight.
Relishing this elysian scene was Bianca and her young apprentice—Fisk. They each carried a basket for collecting plants, namely butterbur root that Bianca needed for her spring sneezing remedy. Having already dug a goodly amount, Fisk located yet another plant they could plunder.
“Your mother wondered if you would be able to distinguish between plants,” said Bianca. “But methinks you are quite proficient. Eventually, I will send you to scavenge on your own.”
Fisk crouched beside the butterbur and poked his spade into the spongy humus. “I never thought about leaves and plants before. But I like it here. I can see the curve in the river, and instead of smelling London, I smell the river and fields.”
“You do not mind the odors of my chemistries?” In truth, some of her con
coctions were far more noxious than London’s streets.
“It is not so terrible. After a while, I don’t notice.”
Fisk’s mother had agreed to let Bianca employ him to help in her room of Medicinals and Physickes. The arrangement proved so successful that Bianca had offered to make him her apprentice. Both Meg and Fisk accepted.
It was not a usual apprenticeship in that Fisk did not live under the same roof as his mistress. Her room was far too small to accommodate a second pallet. But she clothed and fed him as if he were her son. Even his little sister, Anna, came over once a week to play with Hobs and chase wandering chickens out the door.
At the end of it all, there was no guild to which Fisk could aspire belonging. What he would do with this acquired knowledge was entirely his decision, but Bianca knew this discipline and his curiosity would be to his benefit.
She believed that, one day Fisk would further his experimentation. She envisioned him in a well-appointed room surrounded by elaborate alembics and every kind of possible stove, all provided by a wealthy patron, or perhaps a king--though in afterthought, she would discourage any dependence on moneyed patrons, especially royalty. Well, he would make an important discovery and never have to worry about eating again.
The two worked at uncovering the butterbur root, and Bianca sliced off a fat portion for her supply. “We’ve enough now to make a month’s worth of medicine,” she said brushing off her hands and kirtle. “Let’s be on our way. I’ve butter and bread and sage to sprinkle on top.”
Fisk patted the pile of earth back over the remaining roots and the two merrily made their way home. They passed the bull and bearbaiting gardens (busy attracting crowds for an afternoon show), skirted the seamier lanes with taunting wagtails, passed the South Gate with tarred heads on pikes, trod past the Dim Dragon Inn humming with noise, then turned past the Walnut Tree Inn towards Gull Hole.
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