A Murder by Any Name

by Suzanne M. Wolfe

  Once Joseph had put paid to Gorgeous George, Kat went into business for herself; eventually she bought herself out of the brothel and rented a room, where she plied her trade, gradually building up a clientele of better quality from across the river—young toffs and wealthy merchants from the city, rather than the sailors and low-life scum that lived and worked in Bankside. Building on a reputation for cleanliness, wit, astonishing technique, and guaranteed customer satisfaction or their money back, Kat eventually saved up enough to buy the house in Dead Man’s Place, where her brothel was currently located. When Nick asked her why she had chosen that particular house, she replied, “Location, location, location. I raise men from the dead.”

  “That you do,” Nick had replied.

  Kat had laughed and set about putting her words into deeds.

  Black Jack Sims, so-called for the color of his teeth as well as his heart, recognizing a gold mine when he saw one, left Kat in peace, only demanding a cut of her earnings in return for the protection of his bullyboys. Local legend had it that when he visited her for the first time and attempted to strong-arm a swingeing sixty percent, Kat had cajoled, charmed, and bullied him into settling for twenty percent with occasional perks thrown in when the mood took her. He left with a smile on his face that some uncharitable souls claimed was the only apocryphal part of the story.

  * * *

  “Are you awake?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Nick grumbled. Still conscious, but only just, he was enjoying the sensation of complete blankness, a kind of floating, limbless ennui after his recent exertions with Kat in her massive four-poster bed. La petite mort as the French, those self-proclaimed experts in love, called it. When she opened the door, he had fallen on her like a ravening wolf, hands tearing at her clothes, desperate for the touch of her warm, fragrant flesh, the hot gust of her breath in his mouth, the feel of her strong white legs locked around him. Afterward, she cradled his head against her breast, where he lay like a beached fish, gasping for air.

  “Better?” she murmured.

  “Mmm.”

  * * *

  They were in her luxurious apartment on the top floor of the three-story building that housed her knocking shop. Only the faint sound of drunken singing and the occasional slamming of doors could be heard beneath them; Kat had had a double floor put down to insulate against noise. Retired at thirty-five, she devoted herself to the business of running a brothel, taking an almost motherly care of the girls who worked for her, making sure they were healthy and that they were not molested by the clients. Downstairs in the ground-floor taproom, she employed a hulking behemoth of a man called Joseph, formerly The Terror of Lambeth, a wrestler fallen on hard times after a series of humiliating defeats in the local fairs. He had accosted her in a dark alley one night when she was fifteen and at the height of her trade, but in thrall to a brutal pimp. With the quick wit of a born survivor, she had made him a business proposal: work for her and eat for a lifetime or have a knee-trembler up against the wall and starve tomorrow. He had chosen the former, proving that brawn was not mutually exclusive to brains. He immediately set about demonstrating his loyalty by beating Kat’s pimp so severely that he left the area as soon as he could walk again, thus sending a powerful message to the criminal underclass that Kat was not to be touched except when sufficient money had changed hands. Joseph had been with Kat for twenty years, as much her guardian angel as Hector was Nick’s. He favored gamey leather jerkins over a shirtless torso, all the better to show off his still impressively bulging biceps. With his broken nose and one eye half-closed from an illegal jab from an opponent’s elbow, he was fearsomely ugly to behold, but Nick had seen the softness in his eyes when he looked at Kat, the surprising delicacy with which he handed her into a carriage. If she had allowed it, he would gladly have slept on the floor outside her door each night, the better to guard her; instead, he had grudgingly settled for a room next to Kat’s, on condition that the connecting door would never be locked.

  Joseph and Hector shared a deep understanding and mutual respect. As soon as Nick entered the brothel, Joseph appeared, as if by magic, with a great, dripping shank of beef, which he silently gave to the dog. Now replete, Hector was crashed out on the rug before the fire, faintly snoring, having shown not the slightest interest in the strenuous activities of the previous hour.

  Nick felt Kat shift as she reached across him, then smelled the acrid tang of smoke. He cracked open an eye. Propped on the pillows, her still thick brown hair spread out against the white linen, her splendid breasts on full display, she was holding a long-stemmed pipe between her lips, contentedly puffing away. He levered himself up onto one elbow, reached for the pipe and took a long drag, letting the smoke out slowly before handing it back.

  “Thief,” she said.

  Brought back to London by Sir Walter Raleigh after his voyage to the New World, the court and gradually the whole of London, or at least those who could afford the expensive import, had been swept up by the tobacco craze. Smoked by the indigenous peoples of the Americas for centuries, the leaves of the tobacco plant were widely praised for their health-giving properties—sharper mental faculties and a convenient way to retain one’s youthful figure among them. Nick thought it a wonderful drug, even more so since the Puritans vociferously decried it, stating that belching smoke from the mouth was unnatural and devilish, the first step on the slippery slope to hell, where they would get their fill of fire and brimstone for all eternity and serve them jolly well right. Eli too had misgivings, worried about long-term damage to the lungs, but Nick had only laughed.

  “Life’s too short,” he said.

  “Then why make it shorter?” Eli replied.

  Not for the first time, Nick had found himself without a ready answer.

  * * *

  “Tell me about the girl who was murdered,” Kat said.

  Nick obliged. Kat, he knew, was no shrinking violet, having witnessed and been victim to the worst of human nature, but neither was she callous.

  Kat was silent after Nick finished telling her, the pipe long since extinguished, held loosely in her fingers, forgotten. The rosy flush that had suffused her face after their lovemaking was gone; now her skin was alabaster white, her mouth tight with revulsion.

  At last she spoke: “Posed on the altar, you say?”

  “With her hands crossed over her chest like an effigy.”

  “And she was a maid? No lovers?”

  “Innocent as Eve before the fall.”

  “Perhaps it was her innocence that drew her killer?” Kat murmured.

  Nick reached for a goblet of wine next to the bed, taking a hefty swig as if he could wash away the taste of death. When he offered it to Kat, she shook her head. Before the fire, Hector gave a great sigh as if, even in sleep, he was attuned to his master’s moods. In that room, lit dimly by the orange glow of the fire, the candle burning beside the bed, gold and silver thread glinting in the arras hung on the wall, thick curtains over the window banishing the darkness outside, it was easy to feel safe, immune from evil. As if their lovemaking was innocent play in an innocent world. Now Nick’s words had introduced a serpent. Cecily’s death lay between them, clamoring for redress.

  “It’s not a sex killing,” Kat said. “Too cold.” She laid the pipe down and slid down under the covers, molding herself into Nick’s side as if she suddenly felt a chill. He put his arm around her, his fingers playing with her hair. “Men are usually stupid, more brutish and impulsive. Present company excepted,” she added as an afterthought. Nick felt her mouth quirk up at the corners.

  “I appreciate that,” he replied, grateful for her slight attempt at humor. His grim narrative had momentarily quenched her spirit as surely as if he had snuffed out the candle. Now she was rallying. He kissed the top of her head.

  She raised a troubled face to his. “He’s going to do it again, Nick,” she said. “You know that, right?”

  CHAPTER 5

  London Bridg
e and the City of London

  Despite getting very little sleep, Nick rose early, reluctantly disengaging from Kat’s warm body, carefully sliding out from her out-flung arm, her leg resting tantalizingly against his groin. It took a huge effort of will not to rouse her as he himself was aroused. She murmured in her sleep but did not awaken. He stood for a moment looking down at her, her face partly obscured by a tangle of hair, mouth slightly parted, a fist curled beneath her chin. Her breathing shallow, almost imperceptible, so deeply did she slumber. In the deep relaxation of her face, the lines of age and experience were smoothed out, and he glimpsed the girl she had once been. He suddenly wished, with all his heart, he had known her then, had somehow been able to save her from the men who had used and abused her, then discarded her when they were done. He wondered fleetingly if that was what he himself was doing. After all, he came to her when his need became too much to bear, when he was sad and lonely. She received him into her inner sanctum with generosity of spirit, amused affection, and not a little passion, he flattered himself. He loved her as a trusted friend, and he would have died to protect her. In her company, he felt more truly himself than with any other woman he had ever met. Even Rivkah.

  The thought of Rivkah made him reach for his clothes. He dressed quickly and left.

  * * *

  When he arrived at their house, Eli and Rivkah were seated at the kitchen table, eating a simple breakfast of bread and honey washed down by small beer. Wordlessly, Rivkah got up and brought another cup, which Eli filled with ale. Nick reached for the bread. He was ravenous.

  “Sorry I didn’t come by last night,” he said between mouthfuls. “I was”—he searched for the right word, conscious of Rivkah’s eyes on him—“busy.”

  “I bet,” she said, taking back the loaf and savagely sawing at it.

  Nick flushed. “The Queen kept me late,” he said, then was instantly annoyed at himself for explaining. “She liked my scar,” he added, addressing Eli.

  Eli raised his cup. “Nice bit of stitching, if I do say so myself. Salud!”

  “Cheers.” They clinked and drank deeply. Rivkah pointedly turned to Hector, who was sitting hopefully by her chair, and fed him a slice of bread as if to say: I am now turning my attention to the only other rational being in this room beside myself. Laughing at the slobber he left on her hand, she impulsively grabbed his great shaggy head and planted a resounding kiss on his nose. “Master Messy,” she rebuked fondly. Hector looked at her with adoration; Nick looked away.

  Once they had finished eating, Nick brushed the crumbs off the table and laid out the note, handkerchief, and topaz.

  “Smell this,” he said, pointing to the square of linen.

  Warily, as if it were tainted by plague, Rivkah picked it up between finger and thumb, sniffed it, then handed it to Eli, who did the same. They looked at each other.

  Nick waited, always intrigued by the way they silently conversed, as if so attuned to each other’s thoughts, words were superfluous.

  “Ginger and linseed oil,” Rivkah said.

  Eli nodded. “And garlic.”

  “Liniment,” they said together.

  Nick hid a smile. They often spoke simultaneously but seemed completely unaware of it. Eli had told him that their mother reported that when they were babies, they had crawled over each other as matter-of-factly as if the other’s body were an extension of their own, as natural as people crossing their legs when they sat down.

  “And there’s a trace of capsicum,” Rivkah added, looking at Eli again.

  “Are you sure?” Eli sniffed again and smiled. “She’s got a better nose than me,” he explained.

  “What’s capsicum when it’s at home?” Nick asked.

  “Guinea spice,” they said. Then, when he still looked nonplussed, “a kind of pepper. It’s thought to loosen catarrh in the chest.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “Could be,” Eli replied, slowly. “It’s extremely rare in England. Rare enough in Spain. Very costly. I saw it once in an apothecary’s shop in Lisbon. The herbalist told me he’d gotten it from a Portuguese sailor in exchange for a remedy for scurvy. Mouse?”

  “I know of only one place it could have come from in London,” she said. “A shop on Candlewick Street not far from the Bridge. Master Hogg is the apothecary.” She frowned.

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “Well, the mix is a bit unusual as well as being expensive. The most common ingredients for a chest liniment or poultice are licorice and comfrey. Don’t you agree, Eli?”

  Her brother nodded.

  “What does that mean?” Nick asked.

  “That whoever purchased it is well off and well read,” Rivkah replied. “Or knows someone who’s just come back from abroad.”

  Fired up by this possible link to the killer, Nick decided to make a visit to this Master Hogg right away. When he asked if Eli wanted to accompany him, Eli shook his head.

  “Can’t,” he said. “I’m due at St. Mary’s.”

  “Getting baptized?” Nick teased.

  “An infirmary for the poor,” Eli said without offense. He got up and slung his satchel over his shoulder.

  “A free infirmary,” Rivkah muttered, but Nick saw the pride in her eyes as she looked at her brother.

  Eli bent to kiss her cheek. Then turning to Nick, “Mouse can go with you.” He grinned at her and left.

  Nick and Rivkah eyed each other across the table. The house suddenly felt very quiet. Nick could hear sparrows chirping insolently in the solitary apple tree in the back garden, even the faint screech of the knife sharpener’s grindstone two blocks away.

  “You don’t …” they said together, then laughed awkwardly.

  “You first,” Nick said.

  “You don’t have to take me,” Rivkah said, getting up and moving randomly about the tiny kitchen, straightening things.

  “You don’t have to come. I mean, aren’t there things you need to do?” Nick vaguely nodded at the room, then was puzzled when spots of color appeared on her cheeks.

  “Like what?” she said angrily. “Sweeping? Sewing a button on your shirt? Women’s work?”

  Appalled, Nick held up his hands, palms outward. “No, no. I didn’t mean that. I meant: don’t you have any patients to see today?”

  Rivkah looked narrowly at him. As he had done with the Queen, Nick held her gaze, trying to make his expression as guileless as possible. For the first time, he was grateful to the Spider for making him a spy skilled in the art of deceit. Truthfully, he had meant housework. He had seen the local matrons scrubbing their front steps, sluicing them down, opening shutters to air out their homes, other things involving water and polish and rags. Then in the afternoon, the smell of cooking, of suppers being prepared. He did not despise these women; on the contrary, it gave him a warm feeling to think that womenfolk all over London and the world were tending the hearth, making it ready for their lord and master’s return after a long day at work. He only felt a little wistful he had no one to do that for him. Maggie didn’t count, as she was John’s wife, although a marvelous housekeeper—none better; and it was ridiculous to think of Kat lifting a domestic finger. He knew Rivkah was a skilled healer and visited patients in the neighborhood as well as ministering to them in her kitchen and the infirmary at St. Mary’s, but their home was always spotless, their meals well prepared, so she must be a good housekeeper too, he reasoned. Unless Eli pitched in. Nick immediately dismissed that idea as being too outlandish by half.

  He became aware that Rivkah had spoken. “Pardon?”

  “I said, I’ll come with you.” She flung on a fur-lined cloak and picked up a large basket.

  Nick grinned.

  “I’m almost out of lavender and arrowroot.”

  “Oh.”

  Instead of taking a wherry across the river—a bitter easterly wind coming in off the Fens and the Wash beyond was sloshing water against the wharves, and the boats moored there were rocking alarmingly from side
to side, their boatmen hunkered in the bottom, miserably blowing on chapped hands—they decided to walk across London Bridge. Nick offered Rivkah his arm. She hesitated for a moment, then took it. In the night, a hard frost had turned waterlogged potholes to ice; piles of ordure and rubbish, frozen into ruts, made walking difficult, but at least they didn’t have to wade through mud, and the stench from the riverbank was moderate. Rivkah picked up her skirts with one hand, and Nick noticed she was wearing thick woolen stockings and ankle boots with nail-studded soles. He nodded to himself in approval. He’d expected a laborious progress across the bridge, with Rivkah teetering on the inadequate cork-soled shoes most women wore. Now they could stride out—relatively speaking, considering the slippery condition of the roads. But at least Nick didn’t have to worry about Rivkah turning an ankle. They picked their way carefully east toward the Great Stone Gate, the ancient entrance to the bridge where Southwark Street, the main thoroughfare of Bankside, began and continued due south to the coast.

  Two blocks from the bridge, they began to hear the rumbling of carts, the shouts of drovers and stall owners selling their wares, the fretful bleating of sheep and mournful lowing of cattle, the hum and buzz of a multitude of voices gossiping, haggling, berating children or husbands, giving orders, calling out to friends—the deafening, intoxicating, hubbub of the busiest road in London.

  Above their heads, like so many candy apples on sticks, traitors’ heads gazed sightlessly over the teeming streets of Bankside and beyond, stoic philosophers disdaining the world. It was a chilling reminder to foreign travelers newly landed at the southern seaports that treason and sedition were punished to the fullest extent of the law. Londoners were used to them and even gave them cheeky names—Baldy, His Nibs—but Nick had seen Spaniards, Dutchmen, Turks, Norsemen, and the French pointing and chattering to one another in their tongues, clearly unnerved by this grim English greeting.

  Hector went ahead, clearing a path, Nick and Rivkah following close behind. As they turned left onto the Bridge proper, Rivkah glanced at him, her look questioning. Most people had to proceed single file, so crowded was the street, so clogged with vehicles and animals being driven to market. Nick shook his head slightly, trapping her arm against his side; he had no intention of surrendering the warm closeness of her, the happy illusion they were a couple out for a morning jaunt. This was the first time they had been alone in public together. He glanced sideways, but Rivkah was looking straight ahead again, the hood of her cloak hiding her face except for the tip of her nose, pink in the raw December air, her breath a feathery plume as she walked, surprisingly fast for a woman surrounded by merchandise. Nick had mentally prepared himself for a leisurely, meandering journey to the apothecary’s in Candlewick Street, expecting Rivkah, like any normal woman, to want to browse in the stalls along the bridge. Near Nonesuch House, an extravagant wooden house with turrets and gilded accents, an architectural folly if ever Nick saw one, they passed a draper’s with bolts of thick-piled, many-hued cloths—wools, felts, velvets—laid out on a trestle table hinged below the front window of the shop. An underfed and underdressed draper’s apprentice was bawling the merits of his master’s cloth into the street, his adolescent voice wobbling precariously from bass to soprano and back again.