‘I see,’ said Chaloner, supposing the large surgeon had chosen to interpret the incident in a way that suited his inflated opinion of himself. ‘How has Johnson misjudged, exactly?’
‘Because he has scheduled yet another Private Anatomy in our theatre. He organises far too many of them, and we are reaching the point where science is taking second place to entertainment.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘I mean people pay to attend these sessions, and Johnson and Lisle have a long list of rich folk who are eager to commission one. It is not right, and it goes against all I believe. Dissections should be about furthering knowledge, not amusement.’
‘It is an odd idea of amusement.’
‘The fellow who commissioned this afternoon’s spectacle is Sir Richard Temple, and I suspect he will bring a horde of friends with him – a pleasant diversion for a wet Sunday. It will turn public opinion against us eventually. The common man has strong ideas about anatomy.’
‘Temple,’ mused Chaloner. The toothless politician seemed to be cropping up at every turn, but only two days ago Chaloner had never heard of him.
‘He is not a man with whom honourable folk should associate,’ declared Wiseman viciously. ‘He is planning to purchase a sugar plantation that will be fuelled by slaves. It is disgusting!’
‘Who is going to be dissected today?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Fitz-Simons?’
Wiseman had been about to continue his rant, but Chaloner’s question stopped him dead in his tracks. ‘Of course not! Whatever gave you that idea? We do not dissect people we know.’
‘Who do you dissect, then?’
‘Criminals, mostly – hanged felons.’
‘That accounts for the four Public Anatomies, but what about the private ones?’
‘The same. People die in gaol and no one claims their corpses; beggars and vagrants keel over on the street; and then there is the river. We have the pick of them all. In a city this size, there is no shortage of material, and I assure you, we would never slice up another surgeon.’
Chaloner was unconvinced. The legs that had protruded from under the sheet in the Anatomical Theatre had been those of a plump man, and he doubted they belonged to a felon or a vagrant. Someone at the Company of Barber-Surgeons was not telling him the truth.
Wiseman declined to examine Chaloner’s arm in the open, so led him to the old hall, where a number of elegant offices were located. Wiseman’s had books lining one wall, and a large map on a table that showed the discovered parts of the Americas. It was held down by what appeared to be human long-bones. Adjoining the room was a smaller chamber, which had a heavy oak bench in the middle, and shelves containing an enormous number of bottles and phials. There was a window, but it had been boarded over in a way that suggested the breakage had been due to some kind of explosion. It reeked, and Chaloner detected the distinctive odour of sulphur.
‘Experiments,’ explained Wiseman. ‘I intend to bring surgery into the seventeenth century. It is time we stopped hiding behind our medieval heritage and embraced new ideas and inventions. Take your splint, for example. Broken bones need to be immobilised for at least four weeks to allow them to knit, but all we do is wrap them in a few bandages and hope for the best. My dressing will keep your arm stiff and unmoving for as long as it remains in place.’
‘I could not play my viol today, and—’
Wiseman looked pleased. ‘Good! It is working – protecting patients from themselves. Has anyone else examined you? Lisle for example? If he has, and has offered you treatment, I want to know.’
Chaloner would no more have revealed Lisle’s offer than he would have allowed Wiseman to splint his other arm. ‘Why?’
‘Because, despite the fact that he is the Company’s Master, he is not a good surgeon – he tells too many people they will die, and I am sure some just give up the struggle because of his brutal honesty.’ Wiseman’s eyes narrowed angrily when he inspected the dressing. ‘Someone has been hacking this with saws and knives. Was it Lisle? God help you, if it was. Still, no real damage has been done.’
‘Not to the splint, perhaps,’ muttered Chaloner.
‘After a month, the glue will decay, and then it can be dissolved with a special compound I have invented. Until then, any attempt to remove it will be futile.’
Chaloner thought about what Lisle had said, and wondered which man he should trust. Each seemed confident of his own skills – and worryingly scathing of the other’s. ‘I have already lost my place in Brodrick’s consort because of this damned thing, and I object to being used—’
‘Viols are outmoded,’ interrupted Wiseman. ‘And will soon be abandoned in favour of the more versatile violin. You should take this opportunity to learn something else – the trumpet, perhaps.’
Chaloner gaped at him. ‘That is like me telling you to become a grocer, if Johnson succeeds in revoking your licence to practise surgery.’
‘Rubbish. What I do is important. You cannot blame me for what happened, anyway. It is your injury that put you in this position, not the medicus who is trying to heal you.’
‘How much will it cost to remove the thing now?’ asked Chaloner, recalling what Eaffrey had said about Wiseman: that he would charge a princely sum to dismantle his handiwork. He realised he was willing to go to considerable lengths to raise whatever was demanded.
Wiseman was affronted. ‘Unlike some I could mention, my professional integrity is not for sale. The splint stays for a month, and not a day less. And if anyone says otherwise, then I demand that you tell me about it immediately. Now, is there anything else, or can I get on with the business of transforming the art of surgery into a reputable science?’
Chaloner considered holding a knife to the man’s throat and putting his request a second time, but decided he would be safer waiting for Lisle. He stood.
‘I asked last night if you wanted to attend Saturday’s Public Anatomy,’ said Wiseman, sitting back in his chair. ‘Have you decided yet?’
Chaloner was startled – he had not imagined the offer to be a serious one. However, watching some poor felon’s corpse being anatomised was low on his list of pleasures for a free spring afternoon. ‘I am washing my hair on Saturday.’
Wiseman grimaced. ‘Do not be flippant, Heyden. These are auspicious occasions, followed by meals fit for a king, and invitations are very difficult to come by – my offer is a great privilege, and you should be flattered. And, since I am performing the dissection, and not some blithering imbecile like Johnson, you are sure to learn a great deal.’
‘I am flattered,’ said Chaloner, trying to be gracious. ‘But surely you know someone more worthy of this honour?’
‘Actually, no. All the other surgeons are awash with guests, but I cannot think of anyone they have not asked already. And I do not want them to think I do not have any friends.’
Chaloner thought that if he was the best Wiseman could muster, then the colleagues might have a point. ‘I hear your subject will be a hanged felon. I do not suppose his name is Dillon, is it? He is due to be executed on Saturday.’
Wiseman nodded. ‘But we keep their faces covered, so if you know him, you need have no fear. He will not be looking at you.’
It did not make the prospect any more appealing.
Still holding forth about what he promised would be a memorable experience, Wiseman escorted Chaloner to the gate and saw him off the premises. The spy walked along Monkwell Street until he reached a small, unnamed alley that bordered the northern extent of the barber-surgeons’ estate, and gazed up at the wall they had built to keep out intruders.
Normally, he could have climbed it with ease, but the splint interfered with his grip, and he was obliged to pick the lock on a neighbouring house instead. Hoping the closed door meant its owners were out, he made his way through the building and into the garden, at the end of which stood the surgeons’ fifteenth-century hall. Here the protective wall was lower, although scaling it was still an awkward struggle. Ev
entually he managed, and walked towards the Anatomical Theatre, taking care not to be seen. Ever cautious, he turned his coat inside out and wore it in the manner of a cape, then changed his hat for a simple black cap, tucking his hair underneath it, so he would look like an impoverished clerk to anyone who happened to spot him.
Johnson was poring over the corpse, doing something unspeakable with red wax, tubes and a pair of bellows, so Chaloner tossed a stone up at one of the windows and waited until the surgeon came out to investigate. While Johnson scratched his head in puzzlement, the spy darted inside and yanked the sheet away from the cadaver. He was startled when the face that gazed at him through half-closed eyes was not Fitz-Simons’s, but that of an older man.
The stain on the sheet came from an oddly shaped wound in the chest, which Chaloner recognised as being caused by a rapier – fluid had leaked from the hole during a recent washing. Pale circles around fat fingers suggested rings had been worn, and the well-fed body indicated it had been a man of wealth. Chaloner was almost certain – especially as he could now see the fellow had been dead for weeks rather than days – that he was looking at Webb. He gazed at the corpse in confusion, and wondered whether Temple knew he was about to be treated to the dicing up of a Guinea Company colleague.
There was no more to be learned by staring, and the theatre was no place to linger, so he left. Outside, Johnson was gesticulating at a cracked window, informing Reynell that a bird was responsible. Wryly, the clerk pointed out that it must have been a singularly heavy one. Chaloner could not leave the barber-surgeons’ grounds the way he had entered, because Lisle was now standing near the old hall, talking to Wiseman. He decided to leave through the main gate instead, knowing that as long as he moved confidently, no one was likely to stop him – guards tended to monitor who came in, not who went out. However, he was out of luck that day, because Johnson spotted him.
‘Hey!’ he bawled. ‘I do not know you. Come here at once, and give an account of yourself.’
Chaloner considered brazening it out, but it would be difficult to explain why he had changed his hat and cloak – and why he had returned in the first place. Plus there was the fact that the sheet that had covered Webb was now lying on the floor, and Johnson would want to know what he had been doing. All told, it was better to escape without being obliged to answer questions. He looked around, quickly reviewing his options. The guard on the gate had been alerted to the presence of an intruder by Johnson’s yell, so he could not go that way, and Lisle and Wiseman had abandoned their discussion and were moving towards him – one was sure to grab him if he tried to run past. So he headed south, to where Chyrurgeons’ Hall abutted on to grounds owned by the Company of Silversmiths.
Immediately, Johnson broke into a run. He was fast for someone with so large a paunch, and began to gain on his quarry. Chaloner scrambled over the wall to find himself in a yard full of sheds. An indignant shout told him that the silversmiths’ apprentices, who were playing dice around a brazier, did not appreciate trespassers on their property either. They came to their feet as one when he scaled a second wall, and he heard a furious commotion behind him when they laid hold of the pursuing Johnson instead. The surgeon’s garbled explanation earned Chaloner vital seconds, allowing him to vault across a third barrier, which led to yet another garden. The only way out was across a fourth fence, which he hoped would see him in the churchyard of St Olave’s Silver Street.
But another garden followed, and another partition, and he felt himself begin to tire. Each barrier was becoming more difficult to climb with his useless arm, and it occurred to him to give up. He changed his mind when he glanced back and saw the expression on Johnson’s face. The man would not be taking prisoners; he intended to exact justice on the ‘thief ’ with his fists and boots.
At last, Chaloner reached the graveyard and crawled into a tangle of undergrowth at the back of the church, breathing hard. Within moments, the first of the apprentices arrived and, as Chaloner had hoped, hared towards the gate that led to the street. Others followed, and the spy’s gamble that they would expect him either to claim sanctuary in the chapel or head for the nearest exit seemed to be paying off. Through the foliage, he saw Johnson heave himself over the wall, but instead of following the boys, the surgeon trotted to a shed at the bottom of the cemetery and produced a key. He opened the door, peered inside, then locked it again and waited for the apprentices to return.
‘Is he in the charnel house?’ asked one of the lads, arriving hot and gasping a few minutes later. He stepped past Johnson and put his shoulder to the door with the obvious intention of breaking it down, but the surgeon shoved him away.
‘No, he is not there. I have just checked.’
‘Who was he?’ asked the youth, hammering on the wood anyway. ‘One of your students?’
‘A burglar,’ said Johnson angrily. ‘I imagine he wanted to steal the Grace Cup.’
‘You mean that big silver bucket with the bells on?’ asked the lad keenly. ‘The one you shake when you want it filled with wine? It rings, and the servants come rushing to your aid?’
Johnson nodded. ‘We always get it out for the meals we enjoy after our dissections, and there is to be such an event this afternoon. That rogue must have heard about it, so came to try his luck.’
‘Did you get a look at his face?’
Johnson gestured to his eyes. ‘I do not see well. He had a brown cloak, though. Did you see him?’
‘He always kept his back to me. Do you want us to scout around for men with brown cloaks? It will cost you a shilling for every hour we are out.’
‘Here is sixpence,’ said Johnson. ‘And a crown is available if you bring him to me – quietly, though. I do not want to bother my colleagues with this.’
The lad tapped his nose, then went to tell his fellows of their good fortune. It was some time before Chaloner felt it was safe to leave his hiding place – and he turned his coat the right way out before he did so. He emerged carefully, then went to the shed and picked the lock, closing the door behind him in case anyone came back. The charnel house, used to store bodies until they were buried, had only one occupant, and Fitz-Simons’s name was written in chalk on a piece of slate at the end of a crude table. Chaloner pulled off the sheet, and was confronted with a face that was unfamiliar.
He gazed down at the purple features thoughtfully. Fitz-Simons had disguised himself as a beggar, and the dead man in front of him certainly looked as though he had been a vagrant. Could there be two dead men with the same name? Chaloner supposed it was possible. Then he recalled Holles saying that vergers had been summoned from St Martin’s Church – not St Olave’s – to collect Fitz-Simons’s body. Had Surgeon Fitz-Simons been buried already, and Beggar Fitz-Simons was completely unrelated to him? Or had someone taken the opportunity to exchange corpses? Chaloner stared for some time before accepting that these were questions he could not answer.
The chase had exhausted Chaloner, and he did not feel like walking all the way home, so he visited Leybourn instead. The surveyor said nothing when he flopped in a chair next to the fire, although his eyes lingered on the grazed hands and the torn, soiled clothes. He poured himself some wine and went back to his reading, commenting occasionally on a particularly interesting passage. Frobisher’s descriptions of Guinea made it sound like paradise, and Chaloner wondered how its people survived being torn from their homes and transported to the plantations. He found a copy of Musaeum Tradescantianum, and learned a lot about edible plants before Leybourn announced he was going to bed. Chaloner took advantage of the spare room, and did not stir until the clocks chimed six o’clock the next morning.
‘Are you in a better mood today?’ asked Leybourn, looking up from where he was scraping mould from a piece of bread. ‘You were sullen company last night.’
‘I cannot play my viol, Will,’ said Chaloner in a low voice. The loss of music had been uppermost in his mind when he had woken up, and meant he would probably be ‘sullen company’ at b
reakfast, too. ‘I tried yesterday, but it was like using someone else’s hand.’
Leybourn was sympathetic. ‘Your skills will return once a surgeon removes the … ’ He pointed.
‘It is a new invention that will revolutionise surgery, according to Wiseman. Or a dangerous experiment that will maim its victims, according to Lisle.’
‘Wiseman is the best surgeon in London, and I doubt either he or Lisle made a mistake over something as basic as a broken arm. I am sure they both know what they are doing.’
‘They cannot both know,’ said Chaloner irritably. ‘Their diagnoses are contradictory.’
Leybourn handed him some ale. It was stronger than the brews Chaloner usually drank first thing in the morning, and would make him drunk if he had too much of it, which would not be a good way to interview Dillon. He set it aside and ate some of the mouldy bread instead, then left for Newgate Gaol, hoping Thurloe was right when he claimed the governor would not arrive until later.
Newgate was one of London’s most notorious prisons. It was a robust structure that exuded a sense of despair and hopelessness, and even its recent refacing did little to render it less forbidding. It was stone-built with a massive front gate and virtually no windows, which Chaloner supposed was not surprising for a house of confinement. He hated such places intensely, having spent time in several when spying missions had not gone according to plan, and did not find it easy to step up to the door and present Thurloe’s letter to the guard. When the man spent a long time reading it, he considered abandoning the escapade altogether. Arrest would be inevitable if the document was recognised as a forgery, and the prospect of another spell in a dark, dripping underground pit brought him out in a cold sweat.
‘All right,’ the soldier said eventually. ‘We are expecting the governor a bit earlier than usual today, so with luck, you will see him before you leave. I will tell him you are here.’
Blood On The Strand: Chaloner's Second Exploit in Restoration London (Thomas Chaloner) Page 15