“All the world’s a stage,” Will was wont to say. “And we are players on it.”
Nick bought the first round, deliberately overpaying by a shilling. The innkeeper, a florid-faced fellow who looked as if he drank his own stock on the sly, raised his eyebrows.
“A word,” Nick said.
The innkeeper jerked his head to the back of the room. “Take over, Molly,” he instructed the serving wench, and slid out from behind the bar. “I need to get up another barrel.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Nick said, following him to a flight of dank cellar stairs, but before the innkeeper could go down them, Nick put a hand on his arm. “Did you know Simon Winchelsea?”
The man nodded, glancing over Nick’s shoulder to make sure none of his patrons were within earshot. He needn’t have worried. There was such a racket in the main room of the tavern that, unless someone had the ability to lip-read, it would have been impossible to understand what they were saying.
“Was he in the night he was murdered?” Nick asked.
Again the man nodded. “Earlier in the evening.”
“Who with?”
The man shrugged, but Nick could see he knew and was afraid. “I give you my word no one will know the information came from you,” Nick told him.
The innkeeper swallowed and glanced down the pitch-black well of the cellar steps as if he were contemplating throwing himself down. Instead, he leaned closer to Nick. “He didn’t talk to them, but I saw him watching Gavell and his mate Richie.”
“Watching?”
“That’s what it looked like.”
“Did he talk to anyone?”
“He wouldn’t, would he?” the man said. “He weren’t a regular. Came in from time to time if he were in the area. That’s how I got to know him a bit. He told me his name, said how he hated the city. But that night I thought he just stopped in because of the rain, to shelter like. It were a shocking night.”
“How long did he stay?”
The man shrugged. “I were busy serving. One moment he were there, and when I looked up again, he were gone. That were just after St. Clement’s tolled seven.” Situated just across the street from the tavern, St. Clement’s was the chief timekeeper for the neighborhood.
An honest answer but not very helpful. Nick knew from experience that time could pass quickly when serving in a busy tavern. What seemed like a brief time could have been much longer and vice versa.
“Thank you.” As Nick turned to go back into the taproom, he almost bumped into Edmund. Nick hadn’t heard him approach, and as he had left Hector sitting outside the inn by the front door, he hadn’t been alerted. Nick didn’t know if he had overheard the names of Gavell or Stace and wasn’t sure it mattered, as Edmund knew he was investigating Winchelsea’s murder. Used as he was to acting independently, this constant shadowing was beginning to irk him. He didn’t know if Edmund was acting on instructions from Essex or if he was simply doing what Nick had found so exasperating when they were at Oxford. But one thing he did know: he would have to put up with Edmund’s presence if he was to keep Essex sweet. Not for the first time, he cursed the Queen and Walsingham for sending him on this mission.
“Were you here the night Winchelsea was killed?” Nick asked.
“I stopped by briefly,” Edmund admitted. “I might have seen Winchelsea, but I wouldn’t have known who he was. I bumped into Gavell and Richie on the way in. They were just leaving.”
“What time was that?”
“St. Clement’s had just tolled seven.”
That tallied with what the innkeeper had said.
Returning to the bar, he picked up his tankard of ale and gulped it down. “Right,” Nick said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “I’m off.”
“Where are we going?” Edmund asked. Nick sighed. In the last few days he had heard far too many people use the word we, and he was beginning to feel like a twin in a bad play, as if he had a constant shadow at his back: Edmund, Essex, Walsingham, the unknown killer. He would have given anything to have John with him instead of Edmund.
“I’m going for a walk,” Nick said. “You’re going to stay here.” Something in Nick’s tone made Edmund step back.
Nick pushed through the crowd to the door. Annie was sitting on the lap of a man who was clearly drunk, trying to fend off his big roving paws. Despite her laughter, Nick could see the hard set of her jaw, the dangerous glitter in her eyes, and knew she was filled with disgust. He was suddenly overcome by a great weariness. Everyone was pretending to be someone they weren’t: Annie, Essex, Will, Winchelsea’s murderer—who, even now, could be one of the inn’s patrons laughing and joking with people who had no idea he had blood on his hands. Nick himself was playing the part of a disaffected agent. He was sick of the whole business. Without caring if Edmund was following or not, Nick collected Hector and made for the river.
If Simon Winchelsea had last been seen alive at The Angel and Gavell and Stace had left the inn soon after he did, then that insalubrious duo had just risen to the top of Nick’s list of suspects. It wasn’t unheard of for agents and assassins to go rogue, especially if they thought they could help their paymasters without risking a veto on their actions beforehand. If all went well, they could claim credit; if it went belly-up, then they could disavow all knowledge. But Nick couldn’t rule out Essex, drunk on his own ambition, ordering a hit on one of Walsingham’s best agents.
CHAPTER 9
Wood Wharf
Wood Wharf was just west of the private river stairs of Leicester House. In former times, it had been a busy wharf used for unloading wood used in the construction of sumptuous houses along the Strand. Now that the area was built up, it had become obsolete and a larger wharf had been built further east where the river was deeper and larger ships could anchor safely. The wharf was still occasionally operational as an unloading dock for exotic woods brought back from the voyages of Sir Francis Drake and in high demand by the rich, but nowadays it was mainly used as a landing for wherries and all manner of river craft disembarking people with business on the Strand.
When Nick arrived, the wharf was deserted aside from a couple of disconsolate seagulls blown inland from the Wash. So miserable were they that they didn’t budge even when Hector gave them an obligatory woof. A few wherries were tied up, bobbing forlornly on the choppy swell, but there was no sign of their wherrymen. Probably wisely in The Angel trying to keep dry, Nick thought. Very few craft were on the Thames in this weather. Most of the shipping was further east, riding their anchors with the hatches snugly battened down. A derelict hut completed the picture of abandonment.
Even though he knew he would likely find no signs of blood or a struggle, let alone the three sets of footprints spotted by Eli—the murder had occurred two weeks ago and it had been raining steadily ever since—Nick always found that the scene of a crime spoke to him in some way, if only by allowing him to see the last thing the victim had seen before he or she died. Then Nick remembered that Winchelsea’s eyes had been put out, and he shuddered. He would not have seen anything.
Nick did not think Winchelsea’s torture was primarily to extract information. The act of putting out a man’s eyes told Nick that Winchelsea had recognized someone he knew. The blinding had been a sadistic reference to that, a hellish twist on the concept of the punishment fitting the crime. Much like a cruel nursemaid washing a child’s mouth out with lye for swearing. It took a special kind of monster to take joy in another’s pain, let alone endow it with irony.
Nick looked about him: the wharf was too far away from the great mansions of Leicester House on the east and Arundel House on the west for anyone to have seen anything through an upstairs window. Besides, at night it would have been as black as Hades. His only hope was that a wherryman or a night watchman patrolling the Strand to the north had seen or heard something untoward, although how he would be able to find a possible witness, Nick did not know.
Squatting down on the edge of the jetty, he ran his fin
gers over the edge. The sodden wood showed no signs of fresh splinters. The river sloshed over the edge and then was sucked back. Winchelsea must have been dead when he went into the water and had not clawed at the jetty. Nick checked for bloodstains, but the surface was so rotted and waterlogged and the time that had elapsed so long that he was not surprised to find none. He stood and looked around. Hector was pawing at the door of the shed. This was where Eli reckoned the murder had taken place.
Leaning drunkenly against a siding at the far end of the wharf, the structure was so rotted it looked as if it had been built in old King Harry’s time. The door sagged on broken hinges. Nick entered. Hector immediately began pawing at the ground, whining. As his eyes adjusted, Nick saw a large brown stain. Hunkering down, he scraped up some of the hard-packed dirt and rubbed it between his fingers. A smear of what looked like rust mingled with dirt stained his fingertips. Blood. Then he put his fingers to his nose and recoiled. The smell of decay was unmistakable. Eli was right. Winchelsea had been tortured here, and judging from the size of the stain, his throat had been cut while he lay blinded and helpless on the floor.
Nick noticed a huge hole in the planks of the back wall, as if someone had kicked it in. He went out of the shed and round to the back. Close to the wall, waist-high weeds in a patch of rampant vegetation had been flattened, and in the muddy ground Nick could make out two deep grooves, as if someone had been dragged backward while their hands clawed desperately at the dirt. There was no sign of blood in the weeds, but Nick hadn’t expected any. The mutilation and killing had been done in the hut.
Nick returned to the hut and began to search the floor, sifting through the debris left by vagrants looking for shelter—a broken pipe, a torn playing card—methodically scraping the floor of rat droppings and wood splinters with the blade of his knife. A stone bottle lay in the corner, its base shattered. Nick picked it up and saw dark stains and hairs along its jagged edge. Most likely, Winchelsea had been stunned by a blow to the head. That explained how he could have been tightly trussed with a belt around his chest.
Hector was digging in a spot near the corner, and when Nick went to investigate, he saw a gleam of metal embedded in the dirt. Levering it out with his knife, he saw it was a tarnished silver medal.
“Good boy,” he said to Hector.
Buffing it up on his jerkin, he examined it in the poor light of the shed but could only make out a crude design on the front. The back was completely plain. It could have belonged to Winchelsea and fallen to the ground unnoticed, but Nick had the feeling it belonged to his killer. If the killer had torn it from Winchelsea’s neck in order to rob him, he would have pocketed it immediately.
Suddenly Hector gave a warning growl, and Nick stuck his head outside. At the end of the lane leading from the Strand to Wood Wharf, he saw Henry Gavell and Richard Stace crowding a third figure, shoving him back and forth between them as if they were playing catch. Nick realized it was Edmund. Then Nick saw Stace hit him in the stomach and Edmund collapse to his knees. A mighty kick sent him sprawling onto his side.
Nick ran toward the men, Hector at his heels. Gavell and Stace were kicking Edmund in the ribs and legs. He was curled into a ball with his hands over his head.
“Mewling little suck-up,” Gavell was saying. “Licking Essex’s arse by bringing him that git Holt. Useless. Fucking. Prick.” These last three words punctuated by vicious kicks.
Nick grabbed Gavell from behind, lifted him off his feet, and threw him bodily into Stace. Gavell bounced off his friend’s chest and crumpled to the ground as if he had hit a stone wall. Stace blinked like an ox sighting a red flag, then lumbered toward Nick, a dagger suddenly materializing in his hand.
“Guard,” Nick commanded Hector, pointing at Gavell. Immediately the dog placed himself within inches of the prone man’s neck, lips peeled back, his teeth showing. Gavell, who had been in the process of getting to his feet, wisely froze.
Chancing a quick glance behind him, Nick saw he had his back to the river. Not good. Stace took another step, a mindless grin stretching his lips, his knife hand held wide, away from his body. Nick’s assessment of the man at their first meeting at Leicester House had been correct. Stace relied on strength rather than agility, and it seemed to take an age for him to close the gap between himself and Nick. Just as Stace was within striking distance, Nick sidestepped his knife hand and punched him in the throat. Stace’s eyes goggled, and dropping the knife in shock, he sank to his knees, gurgling. Nick finished him off with a kick in the groin. The man toppled sideways and lay there, gasping, like a beached trout.
Calmly, Nick picked up Stace’s knife and stuck it though his belt. He relieved Gavell of the dagger on his belt and did the same with it. Later he would show them to Eli and see if he thought either could have been the knife used to kill Winchelsea. He didn’t hold out much hope; most men carried knives with which to eat. They were as common as cloaks or boots.
Nick motioned to Hector to stand down as Edmund staggered over.
“Are you hurt?” Nick asked. It was becoming a familiar question.
Edmund shook his head, but he was holding his wounded shoulder as if the stitches had burst, and his face was deathly pale. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
“Nice move,” Gavell said, nodding at Stace, who was still gasping, his face a nasty shade of puce. If he was concerned for his friend, there was no sign of it. He got to his feet and casually dusted off his hose.
Nick shrugged.
“Me and Richie don’t like you.” Gavell spat, the gobbet landing next to the toe of Nick’s boot.
“I’m heartbroken.”
Gavell jerked his thumb at Edmund. “And we don’t like him, neither.”
“So far that only tells me you don’t have many friends,” Nick said. “Must be lonely with only that ape for company. It also tells me that you and your sidekick are cowards. Two against one is not very sporting.”
Despite the deadly insult impugning his courage—one that would have instantly provoked a duel if Nick were dealing with a gentleman—Gavell, he could see, was reevaluating the situation. If he had been alone, Nick had no doubt the men would have jumped him and beaten him to a pulp as they’d been about to do to Edmund. Perhaps even killed him. They already knew Edmund was rubbish in a fight, but Hector was another matter. His jaws were large enough to rip off an arm. It would be interesting to see if they were brave or stupid enough to take on not only Nick but also, potentially, his dog.
Gavell stuck his thumbs in his belt. “We were following him.” He jerked his head at Edmund. “But seeing as you’re here, we might as well give you a warning.” He grinned. “A verbal warning.”
Not stupid, then.
“Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Nick said. “I’ll take it to heart.”
Gavell gave a sneer. “You toffs are all the same,” he said. “Think your birth gives you the right to do anything you want. Treat the likes of us like dirt.”
Nick moved forward a pace, but Gavell took a step back. At that moment, Nick knew it was over. He also knew he had made mortal enemies of these men and that they would try to find a way to injure or kill him. Not face-to-face in the open but on a dark night in some deserted alley when his guard was down.
* * *
“Do me a favor,” Nick said to Edmund after Gavell and Stace had left. “Stop following me around.”
“Sorry,” Edmund said. “I thought I could help.”
They walked in silence. Nick’s initial impression that the Edmund he had known at Oxford had grown into a man had been wishful thinking. This bumbling ingenue Edmund was the same as the adolescent Edmund. Doglike in devotion, impossible to hate, but always underfoot.
When they reached the front of Leicester House, Nick did not stop.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Edmund asked.
“I’m off to see a friend,” Nick said. “And before you ask: no,
you can’t come.”
“Oh,” Edmund said, obviously crestfallen. Then he brightened. “But I’ll see you later?”
“Possibly,” Nick replied, suppressing a sigh.
CHAPTER 10
Rooms of Sir Thomas Brighton, Aldersgate
When he walked into Sir Thomas’s rooms in Aldersgate, he was confronted by the sight of Rivkah putting on her cloak. His heart did a somersault.
“Oh, Nick,” she said, smiling at him. “I was just leaving.”
Although Nick knew that Rivkah looked in on Thomas when Eli couldn’t get away from the hospital in Bankside, where he held a clinic every morning, he felt an unreasoning surge of jealousy. He glanced across to the bed and saw that Thomas was grinning smugly. At that moment, Nick heartily prayed his illness would keep him in bed for a month.
“Make sure you take the buttercup syrup,” Rivkah said to Thomas as she moved to the door. “And, most important of all, make sure you take a small portion of cheese every four hours.”
Thomas pulled a face.
Rivkah looked stern. “I’m serious. It might look revolting, but it is the best cure for a fever that I know of.”
Nick saw a block of cheese blue with mold sitting on a platter on the bedside table and was about to echo Thomas’s revulsion when he caught Rivkah’s look and promptly schooled his expression into one of complete agreement. And, indeed, Nick knew that Thomas would do well to heed Rivkah’s advice.
As skilled in the art of healing as her brother, she had been denied formal medical training at the University of Salamanca, where her brother had studied, because of her sex. She always joked that she had studied at the “University of Eli.” For those who knew Rivkah well—as Nick did—the lightness of her remark could not hide the underlying bitterness. But this exclusion from a profession she loved was not her only sorrow.
Forced to flee their native Spain after a rioting mob burned the Jewish ghetto and their home to the ground, killing Eli and Rivkah’s parents and siblings, they had found refuge in Bankside, so called because it was the part of Southwark that stretched along the southern bank of the Thames across the river from London proper. A criminal underworld avoided by the bailiffs and watchmen who patrolled the more respectable northern side of the river, Bankside was a perfect place in which to disappear, teeming with a constantly shifting population of riffraff, cutthroats, prostitutes, actors, sailors, and punters at the bear- and bull-baiting rings. Exiled from her homeland because of her faith, Rivkah was also an outcast from the only calling she loved. Nick couldn’t begin to think of the courage it took for her to face each day without complaint or self-pity, focusing only on the needs of her patients.
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