Shakespeare tore the broadsheet from his hand, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it to the floor. “I’m not interested in your whale story, Glebe. It’s the murder of Lady Blanche Howard that interests me. Where did you get your information for this pamphlet?” He pulled the offending broadsheet from his doublet.
Glebe suddenly looked worried. He spread his hands beseechingly. He was a man of about thirty, short, with a pinched face, sharp teeth, clever eyes, and a knowing smile. But now his brow furrowed. “It is the talk of the town, Mr. Shakespeare. Every tavern, inn, and ordinary from Westminster to Whitechapel is alive with word about the Lady Blanche. A tragic tale, to be certain, sir. I merely listened and wrote down what I heard.”
“There is a line in the broadsheet blaming the Jesuit priest Southwell for the murder with what you describe as ‘cross, relic, and blade.’ What does that mean and where did you get your information?”
Glebe looked past Shakespeare as if he could not meet his eyes. “Why, Mr. Shakespeare, again it is the gossip that this lewd Popish beast is the killer. Surely you have heard this yourself?”
“I may have heard the suggestion, but I know of no evidence. That is beside the point: what do the words ‘cross, relic, and blade’ mean?”
Glebe hesitated, as if he did not entirely understand the question. He seemed to be sweating, despite the cold of the morning. “Mr. Shakespeare?”
“The cross, man. The relic. What information do you have about these things?”
“Why, sir, I have no information about such things. I meant them only in the sense of a metaphor; that is, they are symbols of the devilish Roman practices at work here. What could you have thought I meant, Mr. Shakespeare?”
Shakespeare was becoming increasingly irritated. He did not believe a word Glebe said; the man was as slippery as a pan of slow-worms. “And what of this imputation against Lady Douglass and Lady Frances, that they do not mourn their cousin’s murder?”
“That’s what I heard, Mr. Shakespeare.”
“It is tittle-tattle. You have already been branded. For listening to such idle talk, you can expect to lose your ears. And for repeating it, I could easily recommend you have your tongue pulled out by its root and fed to the kites. I have heard enough from you, Glebe. We will continue these inquiries at Her Majesty’s pleasure. You are under arrest. Come with me.”
Glebe put up his hands, palms facing Shakespeare as if he would push him away. “Tarry, sir. Just say what you want to know and I will tell you true. I pledge it.”
“You know what I want, Glebe. I want to know who mentioned a relic and cross to you. I want to know who mentioned the name Robert Southwell to you. Furnish me now with this information or tonight you will sleep locked away with thieves and murderers and may be questioned under duress.”
Glebe’s narrow eyes were flickering. Shakespeare knew he had him where he wanted him: desperate and afraid.
“Mr. Shakespeare, I want to help you but what can I say? These are just things I heard in a tavern booth. Idle talk among apprentices and merchants, sir. The lifeblood of London. Everyone wants the news. I could sell The London Informer twice over, sir.”
“Glebe, I don’t believe you. You’re coming with me.”
“All right, I’ll come. But let me attire myself properly first. It’s bitter out there.”
“Just get your cloak and boots.”
Shakespeare heard a low whistling behind him and spun around. The two wenches from Glebe’s bed, sisters if he were to be believed, were standing at the bottom of the steps not three feet from him. They did look alike, as sisters would. They were healthy, plump girls, and they were both naked from head to toe, thrusting their goodly-sized chests out toward him.
Shakespeare stood looking at them a moment too long. They were alluring in a base kind of way, and he was stirred as any man might be. He turned back just in time to see Glebe making off through the back room. Shakespeare stepped forward to pursue him but found the two women either side of him, rubbing themselves against him, trying to kiss him, holding his arms, restraining him, tickling his stones through his breeches. Angrily he pushed them aside and forged ahead after Glebe. But the printer was gone.
The two women cackled with laughter.
“There will be a price to pay for this,” Shakespeare told the women in a fury, and immediately felt foolish.
“A price, love? We’re free. Anytime you like.” Again, they fell about laughing and Shakespeare realized it was a lost cause. He would send men later to break up the press, but there was little else to do here. The women disappeared upstairs with much hilarity, presumably to get dressed, while Shakespeare searched the room. He found a print of the poems of Aretino and some woodcut prints illustrating its bawdy verses. There was also a pile of almanacs containing the preposterous predictions of the French fraud Nostradamus and an account of Sir Walter Raleigh’s recent venture into Roanoake in the New World. Shakespeare took copies of each of these, along with the most recent London Informer broadsheet, and carried them outside to where Slide was waiting with the mounts.
“Was he there, Mr. Shakespeare?”
“Don’t ask, Harry. Don’t ask.”
Chapter 13
Job Mallinson sat in the court room at Stationers' Hall by St. Pauls and looked out of the tall window onto the company’s bleak winter gardens. He held his hand to his bandaged jaw as if somehow this could relieve his pain of the toothache that had afflicted him all night. In other times, when his head did not throb like a smithy’s hammer beating iron on an anvil, he was known for his good humor and amusing tales. Now he simply sat and shivered and wished the day away. He had decided to come here because he could no longer bear his wife’s ministrations. She had given him salves for his wounded mouth, but they did little to help and, anyway, her talking doubled the pain. A walk to Stationers’ Hall through the brisk air seemed the best way to take his mind off his predicament.
A liveried manservant came in and spoke with him. He hesitated a few moments, then nodded in assent, and the servant disappeared, only to reappear a minute later with John Shakespeare.
Mallinson rose to greet him and the two men shook hands. They had met before, first at a Guildhall banquet celebrating the setting sail of John Davis’s expedition in quest of the northwest passage, and then two or three times since on state business when seditious materials had been discovered.
“I am sorry to see you have some ague about the face, Master Mallinson,” Shakespeare said, indicating the bandage.
“Tooth,” Mallinson said, as well as he could.
Shakespeare, realizing that Mallinson would find conversation difficult, came straight to the point of his visit. “Mr. Mallinson, I need information about some newfound prints that have been discovered.” He held up the scrap of paper. “Is it possible to identify which press has been responsible for printing this?” Then he held out a copy of Walstan Glebe’s broadsheet. “And could it have been printed by the same press that produced this?”
Mallinson examined the papers. As Warden of the Assistants with the Stationers’ Company, he was steeped in all things to do with printing, yet he knew his limitations. In a faint voice, he said, “Yes, I think it is possible, but I am not the man to help you. You need one with more expertise in such matters.” He winced as he spoke, and a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
“Is there someone here who might be able to help me then, Master Mallinson?”
Mallinson shook his head, then closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, steadying himself to speak once more. “No, Mr. Shakespeare, not here. But there is a man who might be of assistance. His name is Thomas Woode. He is a book merchant and an agent of Christophe Plantin’s printworks of Antwerp. Woode has made much money by his printing of playbills, for which he possesses the monopoly. He has a house close by the Thames at Dowgate. You cannot miss it, sir, because it is scaffolded. If anyone can help you, Thomas can. He is a good man.”
“Thank you, Master Ma
llinson. And I wish you well of your tooth. One more thing: get your men to break up an illegal press in Fleet Lane. It is run by a scurrilous fellow called Glebe.”
Mallinson attempted to smile, but it was more like a grimace. “Oh yes, Mr. Shakespeare. I know of Walstan Glebe. We have been looking for him for quite a while. It will be a pleasure for our men to break his press into a thousand pieces.”
Starling Day and her cousin Alice were drinking and singing in the Bel Savage. They were certain they had covered their tracks. Half an hour earlier, in Cogg’s bawdy house, they had given a piece of their mind to Parsimony Field and had sauntered out, laughing and jeering. Now they were buying drinks for the off-duty girls and anyone else who happened to be in the tavern.
Parsimony, who was not only Cogg’s best girl but also ran the whorehouse on his behalf, had been struck dumb by the audacity of Starling and Alice. None of the girls had ever dared tell her to fuck off before, and if they had they would have been beaten senseless for their pains; Parsimony was tall and strong enough to hold her own against a lot of men, let alone women, and she had the backing of Cogg. But she had been caught off guard by the pair of them, Starling and Alice, talking to her like that. After regaining her composure, she followed them into the long bar of the Bel Savage and watched them getting more and more drunk by the minute.
“Come on, Arsey-Parsey, come and have a drink with us,” Alice called, catching sight of her. “I’ll buy you a beaker of nightshade cordial, ducks.” And she thrust two fingers in the air as a salute.
For a moment, Parsimony considered going up to the pair at the bar and dragging them by the hair back to the stew. But she wasn’t sure she could manage it with both of them, and she didn’t want to risk humiliation in front of the other girls. Cogg would expect her to act, however, so she must do something. He wouldn’t want to lose two whores, that was certain.
As she watched, the taproom became more and more raucous. In unison, Starling and Alice turned their backs on Parsimony, lifted their skirts, bent forward and exposed themselves full-on in her direction, then farted and collapsed onto the sawdust-strewn floor, laughing. When they got up again, Parsimony noticed something she hadn’t seen before: Starling and Alice were both wearing jewelry-necklaces and bracelets-which looked very much like gold, not the gaudy base metal that whores usually wore. Parsimony knew then that she had to get to Cogg straightway. He would want to know about this. There was something bad here, a stink as bad as a basket of six-day-dead mackerel. Slipping out of the tavern, she gathered up her skirts and, though not dressed for the cold weather, ran to Cogg’s place in Cow Lane.
He wasn’t there and he hadn’t locked up. Parsimony was puzzled. Cogg never went out; with his great girth, he couldn’t move. She went up to his bedchamber. There was a platter of almost-finished food, chicken bones or something, and the bedclothes were awry. She sat down on the bed and tried to gather her thoughts. He should be here. She couldn’t remember the last time he went out anywhere. He couldn’t even make it to the whorehouse by the Bel Savage these days, which was why the girls came to him. He had slowed down a lot this past year. Something must have happened to him.
Parsimony twiddled the ends of her pretty hair in her fingers. She had been with Cogg since her bricklayer husband ran off to be a player and writer of plays when she was sixteen. That was seven years ago. She had liked the life of a whore from the start; swiving for a living seemed like easy money and, at times, enjoyable, too. She liked the mariners best, the ones just returned from long voyages; they were free with their pay, liked a laugh, and had strong, weather-hardened bodies. More to the point, she and Cogg had a good understanding. In return for managing the stew, he let her keep twice as much as the other girls. She reckoned by working for him she could have enough set by to start her own trugging house before she was twenty-five.
She stood up and began looking around in earnest and soon found his body downstairs, packed into a large barrel that had contained hides and furs from the Baltic lands. The skins had been pulled out and shoved into a pile that looked at first sight like a great sleeping bear. The barrel had been tipped on its side so that Cogg’s three-hundredweight corpse could be pushed inside. It didn’t fit; it was only because the opening was turned toward the wall that she had not spotted his blubbery naked feet immediately. It was clearly not a method of concealment that was intended to last long.
So they had killed him. The dirty, cross-biting, light-heeled trugs. They had probably robbed him, too. Well, she’d do for them. And she knew how.
The question was: where was Cogg’s fortune? Had they found it all and stolen it, or was some of it still here? She spent a few minutes searching, but found nothing, then hurried back to the Bel Savage for fear that they would have skipped away.
She threw open the door to the taproom. It was thick with wood smoke and the fumes of ale. Starling Day and Alice were insensible from drink, snoring on the taproom floor, their dresses awry and their limbs splayed. The other girls stood around drinking with their money and making merry with some traders.
For a moment, Parsimony stood there unnoticed. Then one of the girls spotted her and nudged her neighbor. There was a sudden silence as they ceased their carousing and looked at Parsimony fearfully, sensing the anger in her eyes. She strode over and slapped one of the girls hard on the face, then told them all to deal with Starling and Alice sharpish. “Get them back to the vaulting house and stand over them,” she said in a cold voice that she knew would be instantly obeyed. “Don’t let them out of your sight. I want a word with them two foul cozeners when they’re awake. Break the ice on the cask in the yard and chuck a pail of water over them. It’ll be nicely chilled.”
Chapter 14
Have you seen that play yet?” Denis Picket asked over a gage of booze in the Falcon post inn at Fotheringhay.
“No,” Simon Bull replied. “What was it called again?”
“ Tamburlaine. A good lark, Bully. Lots of fighting. Lots of laughs.”
“Where’s it on, then?”
“The Curtain, Bully.”
“Oh, right. And it’s Mr. Bull to you, Denis.”
“Sorry, Mr. Bull.”
“So what’s it about?”
“Turks, I think. Lots of battles and killing.”
“Not for me then, Denis. I don’t like all that bloodshed they put in their plays these days.” Bull glanced around the room and noticed the eyes of the regulars turning away quickly, as if they had been caught staring at him. He was used to that and didn’t give it a second thought, but he was worried about his assistant. Denis Picket was young, good at his job at the shambles by all accounts and he’d done his share of rope tricks, but he’d never had a job as big as this one. He didn’t want to make him any more jumpy than he already was.
“Where’s Digby staying, Mr. Bull?”
“Up at Apthorpe, with the gentry. Mr. Secretary wanted us to go there, but old Mildmay wasn’t having it. Thinks we’re too common. But I can tell you, Denis,” and here he reduced his voice to a whisper, “I’ve lopped types every bit as noble as him. We’re all one when our heads are on the block.”
“So what you done with the axe, then, Bully?” Picket asked at last.
Bull put the index finger of his very large right hand to his lips. “It’s in my trunk, Denis, but keep it down. Don’t want to worry the locals. And it’s Mr. Bull. I won’t remind you again.”
“Sorry, Mr. Bull.”
Less than a day earlier, Simon Bull had been at his house outside Bishopsgate when Walsingham’s man Anthony Hall arrived with news of the commission. There had been a bit of haggling over the price, but in the end they had agreed on ten pounds in gold, plus travel costs and good board and lodging for Bull and his assistant. There had been some dispute over the usual access to clothes and jewelry removed from the body of the intended, but Bull had stood firm and Hall had finally agreed they could decide about such things when the time came. No point in upsetting the headsman befo
re he had done his hideous work, was there?
“Now, Denis, how about one more quart while I gets some food inside me? Then it’s bed and a good night’s sleep. We got to be up early, son.”
“All right, Mr. Bull.”
“Good lad. I fancy a couple of pigeons and a good bit of beef Would you mind seeing if they can do something like that for us?”
“Certainly, Mr. Bull.”
“And some good fresh bread and butter to mop up the sauce would go down well, too.”
“Yes, Mr. Bull. I’ll see to it.”
Starling Day was awakened by the sting of Parsimony Field’s hand across her face. Slap, slap, back and forth from side to side, hard.
She recoiled from the blows. “Please, Parsey, lay off,” she begged, her voice weak but desperate.
“I’ll lay off when you tell me where the gold is, Starling Day.” Parsimony hit her again. “You’re in trouble up to your scrawny chicken neck.”
Starling was bound to the four corners of a bare straw pallet on a wooden bedstead. Her head was spinning from the drink. Her backbone against the unforgiving wood was causing her agony. She felt the bile rising, turned her head to one side, away from Parsimony, and vomited.
“If that’d gone over me, I’d have killed you.”
Starling closed her eyes. In her boozy delusion, she was back in Strelley, tied to the bedpost, being beaten by Edward. She had thought that was all behind her. Gradually the events of the night before came back into focus. They had hidden the gold and jewels (except for a few necklaces and bracelets to pretty themselves up) and then gone back to the bawdy house to collect Alice’s few pitiful things. Something in them, some rash boldness, had made them give Parsimony Field a piece of their mind and then go to the Bel Savage for one last drink before disappearing forever. After all, why not? Arsey-Parsey had no idea what had been going on at Cow Lane, and she couldn’t restrain the both of them. But the drink had taken hold and now they were paying the price.
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