A Maiden Weeping
Page 22
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Never you mind,’ he grumbled, seeing all his plans slip away. What right did he have to woo someone like her anyway? She was genteel. Raised by a merchant. True, she was in a tavern now, but it was a fairly clean one, and an honest one to be sure, and with enough customers to keep the place busy and in coins. There was always a warm fire and food, and wasn’t that all anyone really needed? And here he was, the son of a scullion, a cutpurse by age eight … and worse.
He kept his lips tightly closed, angry that his chance had slipped away. Maybe she was too willful to woo. Who wanted a wife who took off at a moment’s notice? How would such a creature ever care for children? They’d be wild, dirty, and unkempt. And isn’t that what he deserved for leading the kind of life where danger lurked in every shadow?
They turned the corner at Gutter Lane but well before he could even see the ale stake of the Boar’s Tusk, Jack whirled and slammed her against a wall again.
‘You don’t understand.’ His voice shook, cracked. Her eyes were wide, lashes dark against her fair skin. ‘I was going to ask you … ask you …’
‘Ask me what?’ Her demeanor softened. Her gaze darted from the scrappy beard on his chin to his amber eyes.
‘I was going to ask you if you … if you would accept me. As a suitor. I already asked Gilbert and he told me aye. Now he’ll take that back.’
‘You were going to ask to woo me? You were going to ask … if I wanted you to?’
He stepped back, feeling like a spring fool. He flapped his arms in surrender and stared miserably at his muddy boots. ‘Of course I was. Maybe you don’t even like me.’
‘I do,’ she said hurriedly. She smiled to hide her own embarrassment. ‘I do like you.’
Yet the sudden spike of warmth could not ignite the flame that had been doused within his chest. ‘But I wager you like Ned, too.’
‘Ned? From the Tusk? No.’
That small spark was back. ‘You don’t like Ned?’
‘No. Oh, he’s a fine lad and all. But he’s coarse. He’s not … like you. Handsome and all.’ She dropped her gaze.
The ember in his breast burst into flame. ‘You think I’m handsome?’
She rocked herself against the wall but didn’t look up. ‘Maybe.’
‘And you like me? Then … shall I be your suitor? Shall I … Isabel?’
She said nothing for a long time. She merely rocked, her shoulders rolling along the wall. When she finally raised her head, she wore a tender expression. ‘If you want. If you want a willful, disobedient girl as a wife.’ A splinter of worry pulled her delicate brows downward. Jack drew closer.
‘A willful disobedient wife. That’s not much to recommend to a lad.’
‘I know.’ She bit her lip again, twisting it in her teeth so tightly that it reddened. Jack couldn’t look away from it. He stood directly above her now. She came up to his shoulder and he had to crouch slightly to keep that rosy lip in his sight. He drew closer, for those lips called to him, made him brazen with longing. He wanted a taste of those lips. Just a taste. For he knew now they were his. He leaned in to take them.
‘Are you Jack Tucker?’
Jack leapt back. ‘God’s blood, man! Can’t you see I’m … I’m … occupied!’
The young page could see that very well, and he grinned. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’ He bowed to Isabel. ‘Demoiselle.’
Jack stepped in front of her. ‘What do you want?’
‘I have a message for you.’
Jack snatched it out of the boy’s hand. He wore livery, but Jack could not tell whose arms they were. ‘A message from who?’ He broke the wax seal and tore open the folded parchment.
Jack, much to my great surprise, the sheriffs saw fit to release me from gaol …
‘Master Crispin!’ He read on.
… though I am not discharged from the trial. It seems I must return tomorrow and I shall. Make no mistake. I would not further the taint of my honor by becoming an outlaw. And so … I had to find a place to light just in case … well, in case I do not return to the trial quite as scheduled. Nigellus Cobmartin has shown extraordinary hospitality by offering me a place on his floor. I’m certain it will be attached to the bill. Continue whatever pursuits you were about …
Jack glanced back at Isabel. Guilt at having forgotten the dire circumstances of his master served to cool that ardent fire that threatened to set him aflame. He read on.
… and I shall continue mine. By the way, the sheriffs are keeping the Tears so that Walter Noreys cannot get to them. Come tonight and we will exchange notes. Keep your mind to it, Jack. There is much I need to tell you.
He did not sign it, but Jack well knew his master’s hand. ‘God blind me,’ he muttered. The youth was still there, rocking on his heels. ‘Well?’ said Jack, stuffing the missive in his scrip. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘A farthing maybe.’
‘How about the sole of my boot.’ Jack swung his leg back and the page stumbled backward.
‘No need to be rude, my lad. Fare you well. With … your doings.’ He offered Jack a salacious grin and a wink before he trotted away up the lane.
‘Was that from Master Guest?’ asked Isabel.
He’d almost forgotten her. ‘Aye. I have to go. But please, Isabel. For my sake. If you care … and I think you do … don’t follow me again. I can’t be worrying about you while I pursue the knavery of London.’
She nodded soberly. ‘Very well, Jack. I promise.’
He moved closer again and took her hand. ‘Do you? Do you promise?’
‘I do. And don’t worry. Uncle Gilbert won’t even know I was gone.’ She smiled and tore away from the wall, skipping back to the Boar’s Tusk, but instead of taking the front door, she went around the corner. Jack suspected she would either hop over the wall or gain entrance in some other stealthy way. A resourceful wench, he’d give her that.
So now. Pursue this Richard Gernon or the third witness? Though he had a feeling that somehow, he had met the latter already in that alley.
He was about to decide when he heard the thunder of hooves down Newgate Market. He was as surprised as anyone on Gutter Lane when the horses – the sheriffs, he suddenly saw – came hard around the corner and headed straight for him.
He backed himself against the wall and the horses roared forward, stopping just shy of trampling him. The stallions’ hot breath snorted into his face. He could almost see his reflection in their polished bridles.
‘Tucker!’ snarled Sheriff Loveney. ‘Where is it?’
Flattened against the wall with nowhere to go, Jack stared up at him. ‘Where is what, my lord?’
‘The damned Tears of the Virgin. And don’t lie to me.’
For a moment, Jack was seized with a blankness of mind. He blinked. ‘Begging your mercy, sir, but … don’t you have it?’
‘Of course I don’t have it. That’s why I’m asking you!’
‘But I thought it was in safekeeping at Newgate.’
Walcote shuffled forward on his saddle. ‘This is getting us nowhere. Get one of the serjeants to beat it out of him.’
‘Here now!’ cried Jack. ‘I haven’t got it. I swear by the Virgin herself. Why would I take it?’
‘To delay the trial of your master, perhaps?’
Jack bit down on what he wanted to say. Wasn’t that rather on the sheriffs now for releasing Master Crispin in the first place? What guarantee did they have but his master’s word? And though Jack knew that word was law, there was always a twist that could angle the meaning just enough to suit Master Crispin.
‘And just where is your master, Tucker?’
‘I don’t know, my lords. I thought he, too, was safe at Newgate.’
‘He’s not at the Boar’s Tusk?’
‘On me mother’s grave, my lord, he is not.’
Walcote glared for a long uncomfortable moment until he glanced at his companion. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘Amen to that.’ But Walcote wasn’t done with Jack. ‘What have you discovered, Tucker? Or have you been idle?’
Jack popped away from the wall, getting right up to the horses’ muzzles. They shied, stamping and backing up. ‘I have not been idle! I’d never shame my master so. But …’ – he shook his head in frustration – ‘when the Tracker investigates, only pieces of the puzzle come our way. And in the muddle, we don’t always know what’s important and what isn’t. It’d be foolhardy to tell you all. Although … have you come across any other records of women having been strangled in Bread Street Ward?’
The sheriffs exchanged surreptitious glances.
‘Have you, my lords?’
Walcote fiddled with his reins. ‘Well … it seems … there were a few. But none like this, one atop the other. They were … spread out over a number of years.’
‘And was anyone ever apprehended for the crime?’
‘No. We looked into that,’ said Loveney.
Jack considered, but in the end, three heads were better than one. ‘Have you ever heard of the name Richard Gernon?’
‘Richard Gernon?’ said Loveney with a deeply suspicious tone to his voice. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well … because his name came up twice … on both client lists of the women who were murdered.’
Walcote was silent, simply eyeing Jack. Loveney found his saddle pommel unusually fascinating.
‘What?’ asked Jack eagerly. ‘Do you know him?’
Quietly, Loveney said, ‘Yes. We know that name well. It is the name of a man of our acquaintance, one of the most respected aldermen of the city of London.’
NINETEEN
Sunday, 18 October
Jack swallowed. Well, that’s done it. ‘I … I mean no disrespect to your compeer, my lords. But that is the name given to me.’
Walcote adjusted his gloves. ‘There must be some mistake. You’ve obviously made an error, Tucker.’
‘No, my lords. I didn’t.’
Loveney leaned down over the withers of his mount. ‘I don’t think you heard him, Tucker. He said you made an error.’
‘Oh.’ Jack kept his own council. He knew how it was and there was no use fighting it. ‘Yes, my lord. No doubt. I make … many such errors.’
‘That’s right.’ Loveney sat back. ‘Keep your nose clean, Tucker. And remember this, if your master does not return tomorrow for his trial, he’ll be an outlaw. That means he’s a dead man, trial or no trial.’
‘Aye, my lord.’
They turned their mounts swiftly and rode up the lane, making the turn at West Cheap.
Jack breathed hard. Privilege of the rich. Of course. They would not condemn their own kind. Especially when the next year, the same man might be sheriff himself. And so it went. With his master at the bottom.
Jack’s mind churned on the problem, stirring up notes and memories and words from one source and another and another until they came at him so fast like a hail of arrows that he had to slap his forehead. ‘Jack Tucker, you are an idiot! You were told this. You asked the question, you heard them talk, but you did … not …’ – and he punctuated his anger at himself with additional slaps to his head – ‘listen to the reply!’ What had Hamo Eckingtion told him about the third witness, the illusive Thomas Tateham? Middling height, a brown beard close-cropped to his face. With brown eyes, brown hair and his nose was hawk-like. And then what did the neighbor woman to Joan Keighley say? She described a man with brown hair and a brown beard, with a long nose like a beak.
‘They’re the same sarding man! Thomas Tateham indeed! A liar and a murderer! Well, I don’t care if you are an alderman.’
He cast around. Anyone might know where this man lived. He’d find someone who knew and he’d follow him till he caught him in the act.
Mercery Lane. Nigellus had been right, that the man had had the presence of mind to come up with a false name but not a false street, too. Richard Gernon was a needle maker, encountering women with frequency. ‘Diabolical is what it is,’ Jack grumbled. Why did he strangle them? Why would he need to? The neighbor woman seemed to say that this was part of his, well, ritual for lack of a better word. He’d lay with them, but part of it was to strangle but not to kill. Then what had gone wrong? Had he gone too far? Unable to stop himself? ‘Such a creature,’ Jack hissed in disgust. And he had seen some things in London. Oh how he had seen! From the stews of his boyhood, to the depths of a damned soul. He well remembered the monster who had stalked the streets of London several years ago, killing young boys, when Jack himself had been caught in that horrific web. If it hadn’t been for Master Crispin …
He owed that man his life seventy times seven and twice over that.
If Jack could do this for Master Crispin, it would do Jack’s soul a good turn.
West Cheap became Mercery with a distinct change in the kind of shops. Mercers, traders in cloth, sprung up all along the lane. Wool merchants, thread makers … and needle makers. And there it was. He was told it was the two-story house with the stone archway. Ah yes. A fine place. But would the man venture out on a Sunday? Would he take the Lord’s Day and use it for his foul purposes? Jack could not bring himself to hope it, but he now felt he was the hammer of the Lord, waiting to smite the evil-doer.
Though, thinking on it, he realized the man had already been out and about. He had been stalking Jack. Burning down his house. Threatening him with a knife. Well, two can play at that game! He would be the stalker now. All he needed was patience. He found himself a doorway to linger in, one nice and shaded, and he pulled his hood down low, wrapped his cloak about him, and commenced waiting.
He snorted awake. ‘What …?’ Jack cursed himself. How could he have fallen asleep? What a pitiful servant he was! He looked around, getting his bearings again. Across the way, the Gernon house. People on the street, but fewer of them, being a Sunday. The shops were closed, after all. But it was getting late. He had slept standing up, leaning against the alcove as he had done many a time as a lad on the street. Had Gernon returned and he had missed him?
‘Think, Jack.’ What would Master Crispin do? He’d survey. He’d take in details. And so Jack did. There were glass panes in the windows and so he could see inside, though the rooms were dark. Except for a higher floor. There were candles lit in those rooms. And smoke coming from the chimneys. And then the candles suddenly extinguished.
Jack fell back, trying to be as obscure as he could in the darkening shadows of the portico.
The door opened and a man emerged. His brown beard was clipped close along his jaw and his hair was cut to just under his ear. And his nose … Yes, he could see how it had been called hawk-like, or a beak. It was a honker, yet it was still elegant. He stepped off his threshold and into the street with the confidence of a man who knew where he was going. But as Jack watched him, he knew that this man was not the one who had earlier stalked him, for his frame was too slender. The man who had followed him and threatened him with a knife was a broader man. Damn! So it was someone else after Jack. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the doings of the trial, but it was too much of a coincidence if it wasn’t. Who was that man, then?
He gave the man a lead of several paces before he, too, stepped into the street. Even if he hadn’t met Gernon before, he had to follow him. The fact that this man had given evidence of having seen his master go into le Porter’s lodgings meant that he had only done so to divert attention from himself. It took ballocks, that.
It was Sunday. Would the man actually go to a stew on a Sunday? But if he didn’t mind killing, what would a Sunday matter to the likes of him?
Look at him. Everything in the world at his fingertips. Wealth, status, and he isn’t happy with it. He can’t live a decent life with a wife and leave off this whoring. It’s a disgrace is what it is.
If a man had a good wife, there was no r
eason to stray. And those thoughts naturally led to Isabel. He couldn’t help but smile. She did like him. She had given Jack permission to court her. He shook his head at it. Who would ever have thought that he, Jack Tucker, would have such good luck? He never imagined it. That someone as prosperous as Isabel would look his way! That he would have such a respected profession. God was smiling down upon him and he would not do anything that wouldn’t make the Almighty proud. But whenever he thought of the face of God, more often than not, he wore the face of his master.
He followed Gernon all the way to Gracechurch Street as he headed toward the bridge. Was he heading toward Southwark? Of course he was. That’s where most of the brothels were. But Jack didn’t have a farthing for the toll, and he began to worry that he would have to sneak across the bridge by illegal means … and he sent a prayer heavenward in apology.
But the man slowed and instead turned toward East Cheap. He passed an ale stake and kept on going until he got to Love Lane and turned. There was a stew here that Jack knew about. It troubled him that some of the brothels were creeping over the Thames to situate themselves on this side of the river, but it was up to the Bishop of London to eradicate them and send them packing to Southwark. The law could do nothing.
Yes, the man was heading to a brothel. He looked both ways down the narrow lane little better than an alley, before he rapped on the door.
It opened, releasing music and light. The man at the door didn’t seem to want to let him in, but Jack saw a coin being exchanged, and then all was well, and Gernon entered. The door shut. How was Jack to follow him now?
He stood outside and craned his neck, looking up the outside of the leaning building. It looked like it was being held up by the shops beside it, and it very well could have been. The frame had twisted, and the face of it seemed to swivel away toward the north while the level below faced west. They wouldn’t likely let Jack in and anyway, he’d never been a customer of such a place and didn’t quite know what to ask for.