A Murder by Any Name

by Suzanne M. Wolfe

  The baby was squalling with a vengeance now, its face screwed up and almost purple. Nick picked it up and jigged it up and down in his arms, pacing the floor.

  Kat looked over and smiled. “I didn’t know you were a nursemaid,” she said. “You have hidden talents.”

  “Plenty of practice with my brother’s brood,” Nick said. He stuck his little finger in the baby’s mouth, and immediately the baby started sucking vigorously. “This little fellow is hungry,” Nick said. “He’s not going to be fooled long.”

  The girl called Lizbeth took the baby from Nick, sat down in a low nursing rocker by the fire, and with a complete lack of self-consciousness, unbuttoned her chemise and offered a large, blue-veined breast to the child. He gave a last tiny mew, then latched on and started gulping greedily. Lizbeth bent her head over him, murmuring endearments. Her bare rounded shoulders, falling curtain of hair, and curved arms enfolded the babe in an inviolable circle from which the world in general and in particular he, as a man, was excluded.

  Nick remembered that Lizbeth had recently lost her own infant son to whooping cough. Now, watching how tenderly the girl gave the child suck, how protectively she held him, Nick felt a lump forming in his throat. Two souls, one bereaved and one soon to be bereaved, had found each other. That was a rare thing in a world in which innocent girls were murdered and women were forced to sell their bodies so they wouldn’t starve. He turned away before he became unmanned in front of Kat, but it was too late; she was regarding him with an expression he would have called love in any other woman.

  At that moment, the door opened, and Eli and Rivkah came in. Nick scanned Rivkah’s face surreptitiously and was relieved to see her usual air of unflappable composure had returned. Gone the blank-eyed stare of the night before. Her dark eyes took in Nick, and something flashed there, but then they quickly sought the woman lying on the bed. She nodded to Eli as if silently communicating a diagnosis, and they immediately crossed to their respective patients, Eli to Emily on the bed, Rivkah to the baby in Lizbeth’s arms. The relief Nick felt at the return of the Rivkah he knew was quickly replaced by mortification. Bad enough that Kat and Rivkah and he were together in the same room, but that the room was Kat’s bedroom made it infinitely worse. He felt himself blushing furiously. Chagrined, he made for the door.

  “I’ll be off then,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Let’s call the baby Nicholas,” he heard Lizbeth say. “Nicky for short.”

  Nick fled. He didn’t want to see the expressions on Kat and Rivkah’s faces, let alone have to protest that he wasn’t the child’s father. He doubted whether either of them would believe him. At the bottom step he heard someone call his name. Looking up, he saw Rivkah leaning over the balustrade. “Thank you,” she said. “For last night.” She was gone before Nick could think of a reply.

  * * *

  Feeling less burdened than he had felt in a long time, despite the fact that he felt in his bones that a murderer was still on the loose, Nick nipped back to The Black Sheep to pick up a few things and told Maggie of the Queen’s ultimatum about solving the murder before Christmas. His fear that he was being tested for his loyalty, he kept to himself.

  “I suppose that means I won’t see hide nor hair of the pair of you for the week,” she said; then, putting a hand on his arm, “You and John be careful, Nick. This man is a devil.”

  “I need Hector with me,” Nick said. “Sorry.” Ordinarily, he would have left the dog to guard Maggie, Henry, and Jane if both he and John were not there, but he had a feeling Hector’s nose was going to come in useful.

  “I’ll send over to Kat and borrow Joseph if things go pear-shaped. Don’t worry.”

  “Black Jack Sims owes me a favor or two,” Nick said. “He said his lads would be patrolling the waterfront until the murderer is caught.”

  “I’ll not have that riffraff in my tavern,” Maggie replied, eyes flashing. She made no secret of despising Black Jack, but for all that, he had always treated her with gallantry. Privately, Nick thought Black Jack admired her spirit. If the man had been a couple of decades younger, Nick would have been worried for John’s health.

  Nick set off for the Tower back the way he had come the previous evening. As he trudged across the bridge, he wondered how the sailors had known which house to burn. Perhaps someone from the court had talked about the murders in one of Bankside’s many taverns or the Bear Garden or even Kat’s brothel. But they still couldn’t have known Eli and Rivkah were Jews unless whoever it was knew Nick and who his friends were. It made him profoundly uneasy, as if there was a spy in their midst. Then he gave an ironic and slightly despairing laugh: He could name one: Himself.

  Shaking off this futile train of thought, he considered how best to approach Sir Thomas. By the time he entered the Tower Gate again, he had decided that the direct approach was the best: he would take him down to the dungeon where the instruments of torture were kept and let him feast his eyes on them while he questioned him. If that didn’t work, he would, reluctantly, be forced to use them.

  Shivering more from the thought of deliberately and cold-bloodedly inflicting pain on another human being than from the cold, Nick approached Sir John.

  “I’m here to see Sir Thomas,” Nick informed him.

  Sir John looked at him with surprise. “He’s not here,” he said. “An order came from the Queen this morning to release him. I thought you knew.”

  Without saying a word, Nick turned on his heel and left.

  * * *

  The city of London was struggling to emerge from the smothering cocoon of snow that had temporarily immobilized it. Household servants and shop apprentices were busily shoveling their doorsteps and the street directly in front of their premises. Delivery carts were scarce, for most people had thrown the snow into the middle of the street, making it all but impassable. Nick was forced to stop only once when a stray shovelful of snow landed squarely on his boots. The grin on the shop-boy’s face faded when he saw Nick’s expression.

  “Sorry, mister,” he said, pulling at his cap.

  Nick grunted and moved on, Hector keeping pace at his side, sensing his master’s mood of cold fury.

  On reaching Whitehall, Nick pushed past the soldiers at the front entrance, ignoring their protests, and took the stairs two at a time.

  “Let me pass,” he ordered the guards at the door of the Queen’s apartments. When they refused to uncross their pikes, Nick hammered on the door. Behind it he could hear the Queen’s voice pause in full rant and then the bellow, “Let him in, you dolts!”

  Glancing nervously at each other, the guards stepped aside. Nick gave them an evil grin and entered the room.

  “Where the hell have you been?” were the first words out of his sovereign’s mouth.

  Nick opened his mouth to reply, but the Queen had already lost interest, turning instead to her primary victim, Cecil, who, Nick was pleased to see, was standing in the middle of the floor, cap in hand, misshapen shoulders slumped, like a naughty schoolboy receiving a tongue-lashing from his tutor. John was standing near the window, keeping well out of it. Sir Thomas was standing next to Cecil, looking as stoic as ever under the hail of imprecations raining down on their heads. As soon as Nick had learned Sir Thomas had been sprung from the Tower, Nick had put two and two together. Sir Thomas was one of the Spider’s London agents, the domestic equivalent of Nick himself.

  Only Codpiece looked relaxed. He was perched on a footstool in front of the fire, paring his nails with a dagger and looking bored. Briefly his eyes sought Nick’s and flashed a message: “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep a sock in it.”

  Injecting himself into the conversation—if a one-way royal bollocking could even be called such—was tantamount to standing in front of a charging rhino. Nick wasn’t stupid or suicidal, so he crossed his arms and prepared to enjoy the spectacle in silence.

  “Just when were you going to inform me that Sir Thomas was one of your spies?” the Qu
een was saying. She had been pacing in front of the hapless Spider but now halted directly in front of him, close enough no doubt for him to feel her breath on his face. Given that Elizabeth’s teeth were black with tooth decay from the sweetmeats she loved, Nick didn’t envy him that experience.

  Cecil waited a heartbeat in order to ascertain whether the question was rhetorical or not, then plunged in.

  “I was intending to inform Your Majesty when Sir Thomas had got sufficient proof of a plot to defraud you.”

  “Proof !” Elizabeth shouted. “And when would that be? When I was reduced to receiving foreign dignitaries in my shift? Perhaps begging in the street?”

  Nick winced.

  “I didn’t want to worry you,” Cecil said.

  “I’ll be the judge of that!” the Queen bellowed. She stabbed a finger into his chest. Cecil flinched but stood his ground. “Do you think I need a nursemaid?” Stab. “Do you think I’m a puling weakling who gets a fit of the vapors if she breaks a nail?” Another stab. “Perhaps you think,” she went on in a deceptively gentle tone, “I’m a weak woman who needs protecting from unpalatable realities by the likes of you?”

  Definitely rhetorical, Nick thought, hoping the Spider would be foolish enough to offer a reply. Disappointingly, Cecil kept his mouth shut.

  The Queen resumed pacing. “You’ve made me look a fool, Spider,” she said quietly. “I arrested my own spy in front of the entire court.”

  The Queen had never used Cecil’s nickname in public before, and for the first time, Cecil looked afraid. She had never humiliated him like this, and more than anything else she had said, her willingness to do so now was the truest measure of her fury. Despite himself, Nick felt a twinge of sympathy. The Queen in full apoplectic spate was infinitely preferable to this deceptive softness of tone, this apparent world-weariness.

  “Get out,” she said to Cecil, turning her back on him.

  Cecil opened his mouth to speak and then wisely thought better of it. Giving a more than usually low obeisance, he backed out of the royal presence and left the room.

  Nick had no doubt he would receive a summons from the Spider later, a summons he was intending to avoid if he could. He had no desire to be on the receiving end of the Spider’s wounded pride after being so publically dressed down in front of two of his most trusted spies. Nick was well aware that shit always flowed downhill.

  The Queen sat down in a chair by the fire but did not invite the others to do likewise. Without a word, the Fool filled a goblet with wine and handed it to her. She quaffed it off and held it out for a refill.

  “So,” she said after a long pause, regarding Nick and Sir Thomas over the rim of her goblet. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. A murderer is running around my court, killing my ladies in an effort to discredit me.” She turned her eyes on Nick and then on Sir Thomas, who had not moved a muscle during the entire time Nick had been in the room. “And unbeknownst to me, Cecil tells me that you, Sir Thomas, are his spy and are close to having evidence of some kind of tax fiddle going on at the docks. Have I got that right, gentlemen?”

  Both Nick and Sir Thomas nodded.

  Nick risked a glance over the Queen’s shoulder at John and saw him shrug as if to tell him he was on his own with this one.

  “What do you think, Fool?” the Queen asked Codpiece.

  “I think Your Majesty is surrounded by fools,” he replied, completing his manicure and buffing his nails on his jerkin. “Perhaps Your Majesty should employ me as a spy?”

  The Queen looked at him sharply before laughing. “Perhaps, Fool. Perhaps.”

  Nick saw Sir Thomas’s mouth twist with contempt. Nick was careful to hide his own admiration of the Fool’s acting ability, although for a panicky moment, he had thought Codpiece had been too clever by half and had almost given away his true role. In reality, Codpiece had been testing Sir Thomas. The Queen, Nick saw, had been just as startled until she realized what the Fool was up to. She was smiling now, and Nick saw that the Fool had also intended to cheer her up with a veiled reminder that, through him, she had a secret weapon at court. Clever, clever Richard.

  Elizabeth sighed. “Right,” she said. “Let’s have it then.” She pointed a finger at Sir Thomas. “You start.”

  Drawing himself up to military attention, Sir Thomas began. He told the Queen that when he was stationed in the Netherlands, he had been recruited into the spy network by Sir Robert Dudley, his commander, who had recommended him to the Spider.

  At the name, the Queen’s face softened slightly. Nick silently applauded Sir Thomas for throwing in her favorite’s name. Behind the soldier’s stoic demeanor was a sharp mind and not a little cunning. Nick was starting to like the man.

  “When I returned to England, Cecil contacted me,” Sir Thomas was saying. “He already had a chief spy on the Continent.” Here Sir Thomas glanced at Nick. “Although I didn’t know his identity.”

  And I didn’t know yours, Nick thought with an irritation directed more at the Spider than at Sir Thomas. For the first time, Nick saw that the Spider’s insistence that each spy in his network should be ignorant of the identity of his fellow spies could be a weakness rather than a strength. It was true that if one were caught, he could not name others under torture. But it was also true that sometimes they operated blind and at cross-purposes as had happened in the fiasco of the day before. Nick suspected that the Spider’s need to be the only one who knew everyone was more to do with a love of power than a need for security. He and Sir Thomas needed to have a nice long chat.

  Sir Thomas continued detailing his investigation into widespread fraud on the docks, where luxury items like wine, spices, glass, and precious stones and metals were recorded as much humbler commodities.

  “Such as?” the Queen asked.

  “Dried peas, horn, barley, tallow,” Sir Thomas said. “Anything, as long as it is cheap and common enough for the tax to be low.”

  “How long has it been going on?” The Queen was obviously totting up how much she had been bilked, and she did not look pleased.

  “Five years,” Sir Thomas said.

  “Five years! And you have only just discovered this?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Sir Thomas turned to Nick and held out his hand. “If I may?”

  Nick gaped at him for a moment. Then the penny dropped. He withdrew the scrap of paper he had confiscated the day before from among Sir Thomas’s personal effects at the Tower and handed it over.

  Elizabeth held out her hand, and Sir Thomas passed it to her. She squinted at it for a few minutes before returning it. “What is it?”

  “Part of a secret ledger kept by Master Summers. One of my agents is embedded as a scribe in the Custom House; he managed to tear off a small piece before he was interrupted. Fortunately, he was able to maintain his cover. Now we have proof, we are planning on raiding the place shortly.”

  Elizabeth studied him. “Well,” she said, “at least you’re making progress. Albeit five years too late. Perhaps I should demand that you repay me the monies lost in taxes, Sir Thomas? That would be a pretty incentive to harder work, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “And you,” Elizabeth said, turning a flinty gaze on Nick. “Speaking of hard work. I see you have caught the murderer. Just when were you planning on informing me of this, might I ask?”

  Oh, bollocks, Nick thought. Here it comes. Out loud, he said, “I have doubts about Sir Hugh’s guilt, Majesty.”

  Nick could have added that her monumental cock-up in having an innocent man, one of her own spies to boot, put in the Tower had wasted an entire day, but he refrained. He was in enough hot water as it was.

  “Doubts?” the Queen said. “Hear that, Fool?” she informed Codpiece with a sarcasm so profound, Nick shuddered. “He says he has doubts. Well, fancy that!”

  “Perhaps, Majesty, you should hear him out?” the Fool suggested. For once his tone was completely serious.

  Elizabeth held her
Fool’s gaze for a moment and then turned again to Nick. “Go on then,” she said. “Astonish me. And make it good.”

  Nick detailed the events surrounding Mary’s death, her assignation with Hugh in the Privy Garden, their argument, the approximate time Rivkah had determined that Mary had died.

  At the mention of Rivkah, Sir Thomas glanced at him, obviously intrigued.

  “So far I am not hearing anything but a motive for Sir Hugh to kill Mary,” the Queen said.

  Nick then explained that the difference in the way the two girls had been killed made him suspect that there might be two different murderers.

  “Two?” The Queen’s expression darkened.

  “Yes, Majesty,” Nick said. “I can see Hugh killing Mary in the heat of passion but I cannot picture him planning and carrying out Cecily’s murder. I believe that whoever killed Cecily is still at large and is extremely dangerous.” He decided that now was not the time to add that Hugh’s hopeless repetition of denial in his cell the previous day had begun to make Nick wonder if he were innocent after all.

  After he finished, the Queen sat silent for a long time. No one moved a muscle, not even Hector, who, sensing squalls ahead, had taken refuge with John as soon as Nick had entered the room. Even the Fool kept his peace. Nick could hear doors slamming in the corridors, voices shouting, a dog barking—even, he fancied, the shriek of seagulls skimming over the river.

  A log collapsed on the fire, sending up a shower of sparks, and the Queen roused herself. She looked from Nick to Sir Thomas and then back again, as if assessing them. “Cecil speaks highly of your abilities,” she said at last.

  First I’ve heard, thought Nick.

  “So I will be patient a little while longer.” She stood up. “I want results, gentlemen.” She pointed to Nick. “Now that Sir Hugh is in custody, I cannot hold the court off much longer. They are baying for his blood. People are frightened; they want answers. And so do I.” The way she said it made it clear this was a royal command. “Therefore, find me a murderer. Or two murderers,” she added. “I don’t care as long as you do it. And you,” she said, pointing to Sir Thomas, “find me those cozeners.”