The Midwife and the Assassin

by Sam Thomas

  When night fell, Mrs. Claypole woke with a start. She looked wildly about for Deborah, her eyes wide with fear.

  “She is here,” I said.

  “How is she?” Mrs. Claypole asked.

  “The fever has not broken, but she has slept,” I said. “And that is no small thing. You should see if she will eat.”

  Mrs. Claypole took the child and offered her breast. I said a prayer of thanks when Deborah began to suck. That she ate was hardly a guarantee that she would live, but it would have boded ill if she had refused. When she had finished, I anointed her once again with oil and gave her back to her mother. “Now we wait,” I said.

  The nighttime hours passed with agonizing slowness. Mr. Claypole slept in his chair, while I lay with Mrs. Claypole, the child between us.

  I woke with a start to a woman’s weeping, and found Mrs. Claypole holding her daughter to her chest. “She—she—is cold.”

  I fought back tears of my own as I took the child in my arms. I put my wrist to her forehead and began to laugh despite myself. “She is not cold,” I said. “Her fever is broken, and she is sleeping.” Deborah opened her eyes and began to cry. “See? She is hungry.”

  Mrs. Claypole began to laugh as well and shook her husband’s knee to wake him. “She is well,” she cried. “She is well.”

  Deborah ate and went back to sleep. With the fever broken there was little left for me to do, so I packed my valise. I wondered what news—if any—awaited me at home.

  “Will you not stay for breakfast?” Mrs. Claypole asked. “It is the least we can offer.”

  “I am afraid I cannot,” I said. “I have business I must attend to. I will send Martha back this afternoon to check on both of you.”

  As I neared my home, Watling Street seemed no different than on any other morning, but I knew in mere moments I might learn that my daughter had died. I begged God for strength and started up the stairs.

  Chapter 24

  I’d not yet reached the door when it flew open and a figure trailing bright red hair flew across the threshold and into my arms.

  It took perhaps half an hour for Martha and Tom to pry Elizabeth and me apart, and half as long again for me to stop crying. When Will returned it all started again: laughter, tears, the demands that Elizabeth tell her story, and my halfhearted reprimands for what she’d done and the worry she’d caused us. With far too little food in our apartment, the five of us retreated to a victualing house for breakfast, and there Elizabeth told her story.

  “Getting here was as easy as could be,” Elizabeth insisted. “I rode in a farmer’s cart from Pontrilas to Hereford—people make the journey every day. I spent a cold night in a hayloft, but I’d brought a blanket, so it wasn’t too bad.”

  Tom—not knowing Elizabeth as the rest of us did—stared in open-mouthed wonder. “You just wrapped yourself in a blanket and went to sleep?” he asked.

  “Well, I didn’t sleep much,” Elizabeth admitted. “But what else was I to do?” I had introduced Tom as Will’s master—in what work, I did not say—thinking she could wait to hear the news that he soon would be her stepfather.

  “Well, you might have stayed in Pontrilas,” I said. Nobody heard me.

  “And how did you come to London?” Martha asked. She had made the same journey in her youth, but she had not been quite so young, nor had she been alone.

  “That was no trouble, either,” Elizabeth said. “I waited until just before Hereford’s market day to leave Pontrilas, for I knew the town would be crowded with people going to London. I went to the market and looked for someone traveling east.”

  “You approached strangers and asked if they would take you to London?” Tom asked. “Just like that?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Not just anyone. I only talked to widows and men who had their wives with them. I thought they would be less likely to cause me trouble. And if someone did…” Elizabeth reached into her apron and produced a knife.

  “Elizabeth!” Tom and I gasped together, while Martha and Will laughed.

  “Would you have had me travel alone and unarmed?” she asked.

  “I would have had you stay in Pontrilas,” I said, but once again nobody heard me.

  “And when you found someone, what did you tell them?” Will asked.

  “The truth.” Elizabeth laughed. “That my mother was in London and she had sent for me.”

  I started to interrupt, but Elizabeth held up her hand. “It was true, Ma. You had sent the letter to Hannah a few days before I left.”

  “You did not know I had sent it,” I pointed out.

  Elizabeth shrugged as if this detail were of no import, and continued her tale. “In the end I traveled with a cloth merchant’s widow. She had two servants with her, so we were safe enough. Once we came to London I walked to St. Paul’s. It was easy enough to find. Then I asked directions to the Cheap, and then to Watling Street. Once I’d found that, I could hardly miss the sign you’d hung up. And that was that. The gold paint is lovely, by the way.”

  By now we’d finished our meal and wandered onto Cheapside Street. We spent the rest of the day walking through the Cheap showing Elizabeth the Great Conduit, St. Mary-le-Bow, and other landmarks that would help her find her way around. Tom and Will started back to the Horned Bull, while Martha and I returned to Watling Street. As we climbed the stairs to our tenement, Elizabeth fell silent and furrowed her brow, clearly deep in thought. By the time we reached our door, she’d come to some sort of conclusion. She whirled on Martha and me, her eyes ablaze.

  “Just what have the two of you been doing here?”

  Martha and I looked at her in astonishment. “What do you mean?” I managed.

  “First you send your silks and fine linens back to Pontrilas with no explanation. Then I find you living in this … this…” She gestured at our rooms at a loss for words adequate to describe them. She shook her head. “You are not suddenly poor, so you must be over the shoes in some strange business. I demand to know what it is.”

  Martha and I began to laugh at the same time, and I embraced Elizabeth. “Very well. We will tell you everything.”

  Over the course of the evening Martha and I told Elizabeth of our work for Cromwell, my betrothal to Tom, and our plans to move together into a larger house. She was, of course, entranced by our work as spies, and pleased with London, having taken a liking both to Tom and the Cheap.

  “I’m glad you found someone else to love,” she said just before she went to sleep.

  * * *

  With Elizabeth’s arrival, the apartment on Watling Street became far too small. We borrowed a bed from Katherine, but the only place to put it was in the parlor. While Martha and I had become used to sharing a room, Elizabeth chafed at the idea that her chamber also would serve as the kitchen, dining room, and parlor. When Will sat on the edge of her bed as if it were just another piece of furniture, she chased him off it with a broom and a few choice words.

  Luckily, the tenants in the house I had found agreed to depart early, and within a fortnight we moved from our tenement to the house further down the street. More room meant more work, of course, and I took on a maidservant named Susan Oliver to help with the cooking and cleaning. The sign Martha and I had hung over Mrs. Evelyn’s door came with us, of course, and soon we’d settled in quite nicely.

  For her part, Elizabeth began to frequent Katherine Chidley’s shop, and within weeks the two of them were as closely knit as any gossips in London. Katherine had only the one living son, and Elizabeth’s arrival gave her the chance to mother a girl. Elizabeth claimed that she enjoyed the needlework, but it soon became clear that she and Katherine spent as much time talking about politics as they did sewing coats.

  “How is it,” Elizabeth asked me one morning over bread and cheese, “that you sought a license from a bishop for your midwifery?” The edge in her voice made clear that she was not asking a question, but preparing to make a speech. She continued without waiting for my response. “Was the Archbi
shop of York well versed in the art of midwifery? That would make him a rare man indeed, don’t you think?”

  “Someone has been spending rather too much time with Katherine Chidley,” I murmured.

  “Or perhaps the Archbishop bore children himself, and learned the art that way,” Elizabeth continued. “But that would be no less rare. They say the world is full of marvels, but what could be more marvelous that a bishop in travail?”

  When I did not take the bait, Elizabeth chose a more direct route. “Why would you beg a bishop’s permission to do the work of a midwife? What does a bishop know of a woman’s travail?”

  “It is a complicated thing,” I said.

  Elizabeth stared at me, feigning innocence and waiting for me to explain myself.

  “It would not be mete for just any woman to serve as a midwife,” I said at last. “She must be respectable, of good reputation, and ready-handed in the work. When Rebecca Hooke showed her malicious nature, the Archbishop took her license and York’s mothers were better for it.”

  “But it was the Archbishop who gave her a license in the first place,” Elizabeth pointed out. “And Katherine Chidley is a fine midwife, but she has no license. And neither does Martha.”

  “Ah, but with the bishops out, neither Katherine nor Martha can take a license,” I said triumphantly.

  “So there are hundreds of unlicensed midwives in London, and thousands more in the country, yet women are giving birth just as they always have. That is a wonder indeed.” Elizabeth took a satisfied bite of her bread.

  * * *

  Despite Elizabeth’s arrival and the readiness with which she took to life in the Cheap, I could not forget Daniel Chidley’s death and the ensuing violence. Abraham Walker no longer haunted my dreams, but in unguarded moments my thoughts went to him, to Enoch Harrison, and to the assassin that Mr. Marlowe had tortured and hanged. Could these deaths truly be the last? I did not believe it, but weeks passed, and England remained free from both rebellion and invasion. I wondered if somehow we truly had foiled a Royalist rising. I did not believe that Marlowe’s prisoner had told the truth about the powder, but it seemed possible—even likely—that he and Walker had been at the heart of the scheme. If that was the case, their deaths would have caused the plot to collapse or inspired their comrades to rethink their plan. And with each day, this hope grew stronger.

  And so I contented myself with a more ordinary life, or at least one free of plots and murders. Tom and I made the final plans for our marriage, which we intended to solemnize that summer. We’d hoped to marry earlier, but Tom’s sister in Lancashire begged him to wait until the roads became passable so she could attend, and he would not deny her. To my great pleasure, Martha and Will announced that they would marry on the same day.

  Curiously enough, even as Martha, Elizabeth, and I settled into a routine free of chaos and discord, Katherine Chidley’s life became more tumultuous. The spark for the change came when Parliament ordered the arrest of the chief Levellers in England for sedition and treason. In March, Cromwell sent hundreds of soldiers throughout the city, scooping up men like John Lilburne, William Walwyn, and Richard Overton. According to Tom, Cromwell had said that the only way to deal with the Levellers was, in his words, to break them into pieces.

  Mr. Marlowe, of course, sent notes demanding any news I might hear of a Leveller rising, and in every case I told him the truth. The Levellers responded to the arrests of their leaders as they always had: not with violence, but with books and petitions. I also told him—since it was no secret—that Katherine led this charge against Cromwell’s tyranny. (I did not call it that, of course, but neither did I see the benefit in arresting men for mere words.) Katherine attended more meetings than ever, carried petitions throughout the city collecting thousands of signatures, and even wrote petitions of her own, each one demanding their leaders’ release and an end to Parliament’s arbitrary rule.

  With London’s waters so troubled, I was not surprised when I came home one afternoon to find Tom and Martha waiting for me in the parlor. They both wore their coats, ready for a hurried departure.

  “Mr. Marlowe has summoned me?” I asked. “This is a happy day indeed.”

  When neither Tom nor Martha smiled, I began to worry.

  “It is about Mr. Marlowe,” Tom said. “But he did not summon you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been murdered,” Tom replied. “And it seems to be the same man who killed Daniel Chidley and Enoch Harrison.”

  I stood in silence and tried to make sense of Tom’s words. “Mr. Marlowe is murdered?” I said at last.

  Tom nodded. “A stiletto to the heart, with no other wounds.”

  I spent a moment trying to imagine what this murder could mean, but was entirely overwhelmed by the possibilities and the dangers.

  “Take me to the body,” I said.

  Chapter 25

  “When he did not come to the Tower this morning I sent a guard to rouse him,” Tom said. We were walking south and east, in the general direction of the Tower. “He was back within minutes, pale and shaking. Mr. Marlowe’s door was unlocked, and his body was inside.”

  “What did you do then?” I asked.

  “Locked the guard in my office so nobody else would find out about Mr. Marlowe’s death,” Tom said, “and sent Will to guard Mr. Marlowe’s apartment until I found you and Martha.”

  We came to a modest building northwest of the Tower, and Tom led us up a set of stairs where Will waited.

  “Have you been inside?” Tom asked.

  “Aye,” Will said. “It is as we were told. His body is in the parlor.” Will opened the door and the four of us stepped into Marlowe’s rooms.

  Marlowe lay on the floor, arms and legs splayed wide. The handle of a knife protruded from his chest. Martha and I crossed to the body and bent over for a closer examination. I looked first at Marlowe’s face. His eyebrows were raised as if he’d just heard some interesting news, and his mouth was slightly open in an O of surprise. Martha lifted his chin, and we saw that his neck had none of the bruises we’d found on Daniel Chidley.

  I had never even imagined how Mr. Marlowe lived, but I was nevertheless struck by how utterly ordinary his apartment was. The furniture was better than the pieces Martha and I had purchased for our tenement, but not so fine as what I’d owned when I was a gentlewoman. For a man who had held remarkable power, he lived in an unremarkable fashion.

  Martha looked to the knife handle. It was made of wood, and unadorned except for a small rose carved on each side. Martha took the handle between her thumb and forefinger and wriggled it back and forth. “It could be the same knife that killed Daniel Chidley and Enoch Harrison,” she said. “It has the same narrow blade.”

  “And just the one wound,” I added. “It must be the same killer.”

  “If so, why did he leave the weapon behind?” Will asked.

  “Pull it out,” Martha said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come over here and pull it out of his chest.”

  Will grasped the knife and gave it a tug. Marlowe’s body jerked, but the knife remained in place. “It’s stuck,” he said.

  “Aye,” Martha replied. “It’s caught between his ribs. The murderer would have had a devil of a time getting it out. If he were in a hurry it might not have been worth the trouble. There are other knives in London.”

  “How could this be?” Tom asked. “Abraham Walker is dead and buried. Could there be two assassins in London who kill in such a fashion?”

  We stared at Marlowe’s body for a time, hoping to make sense of this strange turn of events. And then I knew what had happened.

  “It never was Walker,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Martha asked. “He killed the Harrisons’ servants, nearly killed the two of us, and cracked Katherine Chidley’s skull. You heard him admit to Margaret that he had killed her father. You can’t think he was innocent.”

  “I have no doubt
that he was a black-hearted killer, and would have murdered the lot of us without a moment’s hesitation,” I said. “But he did not kill Daniel Chidley, and while he might have been there when Enoch Harrison died, he did not wield the knife.”

  The blood had run from Tom’s face. “How can you know that?”

  “Walker’s choice of weapons,” I said.

  All three looked at me in confusion.

  “Tell me, Martha,” I said. “When Abraham Walker came to kill Margaret Harrison, what was the first weapon he used?”

  “Pistols,” Martha replied, and in an instant her face lit up. “If he were skilled enough with a stiletto to kill Daniel Chidley and Enoch Harrison, why did he bring pistols and a cudgel to kill Margaret Harrison?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “A knife would have been far quieter, but it takes skill that Abraham Walker did not have.”

  Tom’s eyes darted between Martha and me. “You are saying that the assassin is still out there.”

  “Aye,” I said. “But it’s worse than that. Why would he kill Marlowe now? We were sure of Walker’s guilt and called off the hunt. If the murderer had kept his knife sheathed, we’d never have known we were wrong.”

  Tom thought for a moment and then cursed. “The plot is not yet foiled. Walker’s death stopped nothing. The rebellion could begin at any moment. Blood of Christ.”

  I nodded and surveyed the room. “Did Mr. Marlowe keep any papers here? Anything that could tell us what plots he suspected?”

  “It would be unusual,” Tom replied. “He rarely left the Tower except to sleep, and I never saw him bring papers with him.”

  A quick search of the apartment confirmed this—Marlowe had neither papers nor letters. “They might have been burned,” Martha said, pointing at the hearth. “The ashes are cold, but so is Marlowe’s body.”

  Tom growled in frustration. “I will return to the Tower and search Mr. Marlowe’s papers. Will, you stay here for now. I’ll send some men for the body.”