“Nay, no liar, but a plain, honest fellow who knows only how to tell the truth. Upon my oath, I’ll tell you what I’ll miss.”
“Say it. My cooking, doubtless.”
“Ha, wrong again, Joan. Rather your sweet face as much as I am gone from you.”
They kissed again, husband and wife, for they were as private and merry as could be in the fine bedchamber they had been provided in Thomas Cooke’s house, and far removed from the somber halls of the Temple where three young gentlemen had met untimely ends.
The shabby tavern was not an establishment that would have earned the patronage of Theophilus Phipps had necessity not deemed otherwise. It was located within hailing distance of the river and at the end of a narrow, filthy lane with an open sewer running down its middle. The house itself was very old and braced up on either side by newer buildings. It had four full stories, the upper of which extended out beyond the first, two bow windows, and a weathered sign that creaked on rusty hinges when the wind blew. A careful eye could still discern the image of the bird that had given the tavern its name, but the creature represented had a predatory look, more like hawk or falcon than seabird, and whether this impression stemmed from the artist’s ineptitude or was merely the effect of time and weather was impossible to know.
Now that the Gull came within Phipps’s view, he made an expression of distaste as he might have done had his delicate nose been thrust above a pile of rotten herring. Dim light showed from the bow windows and even dimmer illumination from the upper stories, but he could hear the sound of raucous male voices from within. It was well past nine, and the evening’s riot was in full swing.
Phipps adjusted his fine hat and prepared himself to enter. He knew whom he would find within. The clientele of the tavern were a motley crew—idle apprentices fearless of their masters’ threats, crippled veterans of the wars and foreign sailors, beggars who had found a few pennies for a cup of ale or cheap wine. And, of course, young gentlemen of the Inns of Court, who, in passing their prodigal hours in its dissolute environs, saved themselves the expense of a boat ride across the Thames to the even more depraved Southwark stews.
For it was no secret—except perhaps from the officials of the City who preferred houses of the Gull’s character to confine themselves to the outskirts—that the tavern was no better than a common brothel. Ned Hodge, the master of the house, was a quondam pirate who, if his own boast was not a tissue of lies, had once been marooned on a desert island with only the bodies of his dead shipmates for meat. Hodge was fond of telling the story to every new customer of the Gull— especially the young gentlemen of the Middle Temple, for whom Hodge’s self-confessed cannibalism raised some interesting legal questions. This same Hodge had an old, fantastically wigged slattern in his employ who kept house for him upstairs, and a bevy of young female lodgers who resided there on dubious terms and had many “friends” among the customers.
These women served all comers but preferred the young lawyers. Their preference was no mystery. The lawyers paid well for their pleasures and were more likely to be free of disease and foul linen, qualities not to be despised even in so grand a city as London was. These same women went out of their way to curry favor with the students. They troubled themselves to learn the names and the places whence they came; they called them “young sir” and “Your Grace,” when he so honored was no greater than a linen draper’s brat.
It was one such denizen of the Gull whom Phipps had come to see. His purpose was not illicit love, for Phipps’s preferences were otherwise, a poorly kept secret at the Inn; nor was it to consult upon some legal matter, for Phipps despised the law, admiring only those who practiced it, reaping where they had not sown, and making social discord, the bane of ordinary mortals, into a fruitful field. His purpose rather was information—information about one of the young men who even now was the subject of the Chelmsford constable’s most secret inquiries.
For the truth was that at the Temple, Theophilus Phipps supplemented his modest income by lending money for a hefty profit, prompting more than one of his clients to refer to him as the “little fair Jewess of Temple Lane,” and denigrating, in one fell stroke, his complexion, effeminacy, and usury. Edward Litchfield had been one such client—indeed, in Phipps’s view, a quite wonderful one—ever desperate, greedy, reckless, burrowing deeper and deeper in debt, his only security being the oft-repeated and, to Phipps, quite intriguing assurance that there was more than the means to repay in the offing. Some project vaguely alluded to, not to be extracted from the young man for all Phipps could do to have at it. There’s great wealth at hand, Master Phipps, but give me leave to come to it. So had been Litchfield’s words.
For some reason, Phipps had believed. In the course of his surreptitious moneylending, Phipps had heard many such stories, yet Phipps believed.
And now Litchfield’s murder made the young man’s boast even more plausible. But Litchfield was dead, Phipps deprived not only of repayment but of God knew what other
rewards that might have come from knowledge of Litchfield’s secret project.
Phipps was determined to know the truth.
Now, Phipps took it as a matter of principle that no man keeps counsel from the woman he beds, for although he have the resolution of Samson, yet some Delilah will wheedle the secret out. And Litchfield, a callow youth weakened by dissipation and hungry for approval, was no Samson. And so Phipps suspected that a certain whore of the Gull had been privy to Litchfield’s scheme of enrichment.
The question was, would she reveal the same to Phipps?
Inside, Phipps surveyed the scene, the rude, obnoxious crowd, with disdain and loathing. Seeing several faces he recognized but not wishing to be seen himself, he made for the stairs that led to the upper story.
Phipps ascended, slowly like an angel in a morality play. On the landing was an old woman in a red periwig. He experienced a moment’s revulsion at the wrinkled face and thanked his stars for his own smooth complexion, as fair as a girl’s.
He placed two coins in the outstretched palm and was gratified to see by the woman’s expression that it sufficed. He named her whom he sought, and the woman nodded toward the end of the corridor. “Last door on the right. Enjoy thyself, sweeting, ’ ’ the old woman called after him as Phipps, with grim determination, set out for the place where he should have the benefit of his bargain.
“I know what I shall do to remedy these complaints,” Joan said later when they were undressed for bed and Matthew had leaned over to snuff the candles out.
“What, pray?”
“Why, I’ll dress myself as a man—in cape and gown— and go with you to the Temple to be this son Thomas Cooke has conjured up.”
She heard his chuckle in the darkness. Annoyed, she said, “What, don’t you think I appear young enough?”
“By God, you do, Joan,” Matthew said placatingly. “As youthful as when we wed near twenty years ago. Yet you are
too much woman to appear a man, too fleshed out in bosom, beam, and stem. Moreover—”
“Hold, husband!” she said sharply, wishing the candle were still lighted so she could look him in the eye. “Not another word. I may be no famished figure of famine, but neither am I plump as a partridge. I’ve lost a good quarter of myself these months from home and my own cooking. Not to mention the devastation of my illness in Derbyshire, where I almost died! Besides, not every young man is as thin as a rail. Why, consider Marcus Gridly, who keeps shop on High Street. He’s no hitching post! Then there’s William Tower, our good neighbor’s son, who weighs as much as any two of his age.”
“True, Joan. I only meant that no man could find in your countenance anything but a woman’s soul, for it is not clothes alone that make the sex but the soul of one or the other. ” “Humph! Sweet flattery to save yourself from my just wrath,” she answered, embracing him, loving his firm grasp and the warmth of his body pressed against hers.
“Nay, the naked truth, I protest.”
“S
poken like a true philosopher—or a husband desperate to find his way to paradise.”
“To find my way there, I’ll flatter or philosophize.” “You need do neither, husband,” she said huskily. “But be still now and take your fill of me. Then sleep, for the thought of our parting grieves me to the quick.”
Afterward, when her husband’s soft snores told her he was asleep, Joan lay awake worrying. Their bedtime banter had provided her with only a temporary suspension of her concern, for she had weighed the evidence he had from the Treasurer’s mouth, and now it seemed to her beyond doubt that the Templar suicides could be nothing less than subtle murders.
And what risk did Matthew run in meddling in such bloody matters? A father of a young Templar presumptive, indeed! A pleasant fiction, she granted, but the sons of the Inn were gentlemen’s sons, high-bred, learned, and proud like their worthy fathers. Could Matthew—good-natured, intelligent, but a simple clothier—succeed in the impersonation?
And if he failed—what then?
The price of exposure would be more than a mere failure to accomplish his mission. Matthew might be murdered too— his death dressed up to seem self-slaughter!
As fearful as the specter of these dangers was, Joan knew she had no power to deny her husband’s will. She could not drag him home to Chelmsford by her apron strings, or even bribe him with her favors to stay out of harm’s way. He was too far at sea in his perilous enterprise to turn toward shore again.
Tossing restlessly, she prayed she might put the fearful matter from her brain, prayed that soothing sleep would come and in its wake the reinvigoration of day, when all such fears dissolved like the thin veneer of frost.
And then before she was aware, she fell asleep and dreamed.
In her dream she sat before a large, finely wrought desk like the one Matthew had once seen in Theobalds, Cecil’s great country estate. The desk was heaped with books and papers, letters bearing seals, writing implements. Directly before her was a heavy tome with yellowed pages open to her view. She strained to read, but try as hard as she might, she could not decipher a single line. She knew no Latin, but she knew its look, and this was not it. Nor was it alien Greek, which she had also seen in her time. The words upon the page seemed like her own tongue, yet although individual words made sense, their sum was incomprehensible.
Her ignorance intensified her growing alarm. She felt she must know what the words meant, where she was and why. Then a new anxiety gripped her. She suddenly sensed the presence of someone standing behind her, looking down over her shoulder.
She dared not draw her eyes from the page to see who the intruder was. Then she heard a deep, hollow voice reciting.
The words recited were the words on the page, she was sure of it. But the voice gave them no further meaning than what she had previously determined.
Then there was silence; soon after, she awoke. She awoke to the bells of the City and a cold, gray morning. She looked outside, and she could see frost on the sloping rooftops and on the chimneys.
Fearing that her dream had some prophetic content, she revealed all to Matthew as they dressed and he completed his packing. He agreed it was a strange dream and then offered an interpretation.
“The book was a book of law, which you do not understand any more than I. He who read behind you was undoubtedly a lawyer or judge. I see no mystery there, Joan.”
“Perhaps not, Matthew, and yet I felt such a vexation that I could not read a jot. And I have a lingering fear that the dream has more significance than you suppose.”
“And so it may, Joan. Time will tell. As for now, one last embrace before I go. ”
She withheld neither affection nor tears at her husband’s parting. She watched him from the window of the house until he disappeared around a comer.
Then she sat thinking for a long time—about the dream and where Matthew was to go and what she herself might do. At last she concocted a plan of her own—a plan that, while it might not take her within the Temple gates, would at least bring her to its curtilage. Her spirits quickened at the opportunity—and at the danger.
Six
LATER that morning, Joan had a long talk with Frances Cooke. It was warm and pleasant in the parlor, and despite the difference in their ages and stations in life, the two women talked familiarly. But when Joan announced her intention to go out alone on the streets, Frances was alarmed. London streets were unsafe, she said, full of thieves, cutpurses, bullies, and obnoxious, rowdy apprentices. She began a graphic recital of recent misfortunes involving unwary strangers in the City.
Frances was nineteen, slender, well featured. Her long, flaxen hair was her glory. Daughter of a baronet and before her marriage one of the Royal Maids to whom the old Queen had shown great kindnesses, Frances retained much of the aristocratic air of her former position, although as the wife of a younger son of a mere knight, she had fallen somewhat in the social order.
“A servant must accompany you,” Frances said firmly. “Robert, our groom, knows London like the back of his hand. And London is not, after all, as your Chelmsford is, where everyone knows his neighbor and no doors are locked.”
Joan was about to answer that Frances grossly overestimated the civic virtue of country towns, but kept silent. With dismay she thought of Robert. Tall, gaunt, solemn as a gravedigger, Robert had, by Thomas Cooke’s account, been in the family for years. Joan could hardly imagine a less pleasing guide for her excursion.
She would have much preferred the company of Edward Bastian. Edward was Thomas Cooke’s manservant. A solid, well-spoken youth, Edward had proved his mettle in Derbyshire and had temporarily absented himself from service to fetch his wife and child from there. Lacking Edward, Joan would have preferred to go alone. She felt perfectly capable of navigating the streets of London. Had she not done it before, and under perilous circumstances? Let some brawler or pickpurse or rude apprentice lay a hand upon her and she’d show him what he deserved!
Yet she recognized, now, that concession to Frances Cooke’s anxiety for her safety would become her as a house-guest and friend, and she made no further protest, while Frances, satisfaction writ large upon her face, summoned the dour groom.
Robert had wanted to know, quite naturally, where Joan was bound since he had been instructed by his master’s young wife to accompany Mistress Stock. But Joan, true to her nature, took offense at the question.
“Why, sirrah, I am bound where I will. If you care to accompany me, you may.”
“My mistress bids me go,” Robert answered with frigid dignity, “and so I shall.” He made a sour expression that implied disapproval of country women who thought very highly of themselves but whose birth was no better than his.
Joan looked up at Robert. She could see he was very angry, and not wishing to make him an enemy, she relented a little. “Very good. I wish to see the sights of the City, if it please you—the Exchange, or Bedlam, where the lunatics are kept. Or the China houses.”
“It looks like rain,” Robert complained, his long face very pale and his lips thin and censorious.
“And so it does,” Joan said, looking at the glowering sky above the rooftops. “Yet we both shall live despite it.”
Joan wore the cloak Matthew had purchased for her just a week before. It fit her very snugly. She also wore a fur hat, leather gloves, and a fine woolen scarf. “Come now, or it will be suppertime before we set out.”
Joan was halfway to her destination—the Middle Temple-before she realized she had lost her escort somewhere in the crowded street behind her. She didn’t stop to look for him; she pressed on, in the direction she had been given, energized by a growing excitement.
She recognized the place well enough when she saw it, and what little doubt she may have had that it was the Temple itself was resolved by a kind stranger who confirmed it was so. She could see also some of the students in their gowns coming and going, but she saw no women among them. It was as Matthew had said, a seeming male preserve. She envied him his a
dmission to such a place and his manly freedom. It was not that she would keep company with lawyers, but to be excluded by reason of her sex! There was an offense hard to endure.
She turned from the gates that, while open, seemed to shut her out, and contemptuous of masculine arrogance, she walked a few yards farther, then turned down a lane at the end of which was the riverbank.
There she stood for a while looking across to the other side. At a distance she could see the houses of Southwark, the round shape of the Globe, steeples of churches elbow to elbow with bawdy houses and taverns of the most disreputable sort, all veiled in the dirty brown smoke of wood and coal fires. Then she turned again, and closer at hand she saw the Temple Stairs, where, according to Matthew’s account, young Edward Litchfield’s bloodless corpse had been discovered.
Seeing the place, Joan could well believe the death was murder. The Stairs seemed an unlikely scene for suicide. Why walk forth on a cold November night to do that which might as well and more efficiently be done before one’s own fire? But Edward Litchfield had gone out, driven by some unknown purpose. What?
She stood a long time in silent witness to the scene, until, overcome at last by the morbidity of her meditation, she shook the image off and prepared to leave. Disappointed by the fruits of her morning’s excursion, uncertain in retrospect as to what, after all, she had hoped to accomplish, she started back up the lane but had no sooner taken several steps than her attention was drawn to another who had evidently been sharing her view of the river.
It was a woman in her twenties, Joan judged, garbed in a cloak not so fine as her own but of good solid stuff and showing enough of her face so that Joan recognized in it more than a little to admire. This young woman had an uncommon beauty—arched brows, a finely shaped nose, full lips, and a soft, round chin. The two women exchanged glances and nodded, and then the woman moved up the lane, turned a comer, and was lost to Joan’s view.
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