Three weeks had passed since the robbery and the trail was cold, but in a painstaking search of the pawn shops along Houndsditch Lane, Bartlemy found one of the stolen rings. He traced it back to an old crone who picked rags on Gracechurch Street. All she could say was that a fine gentleman in black and gold had given her the ring near Aldersgate, and she had pawned it for a few sovereigns.
Our narrator paused to stuff all the meat from the capon's thigh into his mouth—I didn't think a mouth could hold that much and still leave room to chew, but he managed it. I was trying to remember when I had first heard the song. It was in May, after a performance of Henry IV at the Swan. I had walked with Robin and Master Condell up St. Andrew's Hill and saw an Egyptian girl with scarves in her hair, two musicians … “Who wrote the ballad?”
He swallowed, another amazing feat. “If we could discover that, our fortune's made. A new one began going the rounds early in July, just before the Queen left on her summer progress. It tells of another robbery at dusk, in Greenwich Park. The victim this time is old ‘Lord Stuff,' who has drawn aside to relieve himself in a corner of the garden. Just as he is lacing up his breeches, Lord Stuff feels a knifepoint in his ribs and a cheerful voice demanding his purse, along with the chain about his neck. The bandit is on foot this time, though still dressed in black and gold. And he makes off with the money. Tra-la.”
Bartlemy paused to strip the meat off a capon leg, and I could not decide if he was prolonging anticipation or if he was truly as hungry as he seemed. Starling pressed her lips together and tapped her fingers on the table, finally bursting out with, “The new song was all over London—I never knew a ballad to get such play. They're still singing it. But wait until you hear: Lord Stuff was really—”
Bartlemy held up his hand and swallowed. “William Brooke. What's good for the son is good for the father, it seems.”
“The Lord Chamberlain?” I gasped. “In Greenwich Park?”
“No; on the grounds at Whitehall Palace, where he had drawn discreetly apart. He has a well-known habit of looking upon the hedge, though the Queen forbids it.”
“You mean, the elder Lord Cobham was robbed while—”
“Watering the roses; aye.”
“Ha!” The laugh escaped from me before I could fight it down. It wasn't seemly to make light of a crime, and I sobered quickly under Bartlemy's frown. “Well, it is clever. Perhaps whoever is carrying out these robberies means it as a jest. No one was hurt, and the money taken was probably no great sum—I mean, nothing such a wealthy family couldn't afford—”
“The money stolen was theirs, and I am working for them. Besides, Henry Brooke takes the loss of his rings hard. One of them belonged to his grandfather—a gold signet ring, set with rubies. Not the one I found, sadly. The robber may have kept it for himself, after giving the other to an old gossip who would spread the rumor of him. No doubt all the beggars and ragpickers are cheering on the new Robin Hood and hope to meet with him some day. But I wager he won't be so open-handed from now on.”
I thought of mentioning that the beggars and ragpickers had little enough to cheer about, but it wouldn't have softened his heart, and something else occurred to me. “It sounds as though whoever wrote the ballads knows certain details that no one else but the bandit and the Cobhams would know.”
“Very good.” The way he said this sounded more like mockery than compliment. “But the tale diverges from truth in the second case. For one, William Brooke fought back—he drew his dagger and attempted to defend his goods, even though the thief was too quick for him. But my lord did manage to get a token.” Bartlemy reached inside his shirt and took out a tiny wooden box. Tipping the contents out in his palm, he showed me a single black button.
“That's all?” The button was covered in black satin, with one edge discolored as though someone had tried to rub off a stain.
Bartlemy turned the button over to the shank side, and the stain looked now like something I should recognize—chalky and pinkish with a darker tinge around the edge. “Paint,” he said. “Stage paint. This is what brought me to your door last month, to renew our acquaintance. You were off on tour, but Mistress Shaw was a help.”
I looked to her, suspicious again. “What sort of ‘help'?”
Starling could contain herself no longer. “This button, Richard—this very button—is from our wardrobe. I've mended the garment myself; it's a black quilted satin doublet trimmed with copper lace. 'Twas made for Richard Burbage, and a few of the others have worn it, but not many approach his size.”
The garment was sounding familiar indeed: the same one Master Stewart reported missing just before we left on tour. “That's a long tale to get out of a button,” I said carefully. “How can you be sure it's ours?”
“I showed it to Master Stewart, and he recognized his own work. Then he told me that the doublet had been missing since June!”
Stolen, I thought, as the strands of the tale came together. Stolen, to outfit a robbery. Too late I realized that Bartlemy had been very generous with his information, in a way he would not have been unless he expected an equal measure from me. “And, Richard—” Starling babbled on, “Do you remember the fine black damask that disappeared for a few days last spring? Remember I told you it had been cut, then mended?” I nodded, and she grabbed my arm. “It must have been used during the first robbery, when Henry Brooke was accosted on the road. The dates agree, and the cut on the side was where Brooke's sword went through!”
I stood up, seizing her hand. “One moment,” I muttered to Bartlemy, then pulled Starling over to the unlit fireplace at the back of the room. “I can't believe this,” I burst out. “I can't believe you gave up Company secrets to an agent of the Lord Chamberlain, who is no friend of ours—”
“What secrets?” she snapped back. “Richard Burbage made no secret that his black damask was missing—Bartlemy had turned up a lot, even before he talked to me—he would have discovered that, too.”
“And that's another sore point: Bartlemy. You know what a rough cob he is. Look at him.” I gestured to the table where he was contemplating us, at the same time gnawing a capon leg like a ravenous animal.
She didn't look, but her face set in a stubborn attitude. “There is more to him than meets the eye.”
“Thank God—I would hate to go through life with nothing but a face like that.”
“Stop being so mean, Richard. Your personal feelings matter not a whit. The honor of the Lord Chamberlain's Men is at stake—I mean, Lord Hunsdon's Men. The Company may be harboring a thief, unbeknownst to them. It's in your interest to help the thief catcher.”
I stood for a moment, biting my thumbnail. Then I turned abruptly and marched back to the table, as Bartlemy looked up from the carcass he had demolished. “What are you after?” I demanded.
“Only answers to my questions. To wit: Has anyone in the Company, or any of the hired men, done or said aught to rouse suspicion? Do you know when this satin garment might have disappeared?” His tone sharpened a little. “Would anyone in your Company have a grudge against the Lord Chamberlain or his kin? Have you heard or seen a conflict—”
“Wait!” I felt that my back was being pushed to the wall.
“You seem convinced that your prey is lurking somewhere in our Company. But I need better proof than a button to believe that one of my fellow players is the companion of highwaymen.”
He sucked the remaining marrow from a leg bone and tossed the bone to a hound waiting nearby. Then he stretched his long arms above his head, belched, and reached for his cap. “Nothing simpler,” said he.
GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE
fter we escorted Starling to the corner of Aldermanbury Street, where she could get home safely by herself, Bartlemy and I set off southward at a brisk pace. No words passed between us until we reached St. Paul's landing, where Aldersgate Street meets the Thames. Since the hour was past nine o'clock, half the watermen had tied up their boats and gone home to supper, but the other half had
lit their lanterns and rowed on, trolling for fares. They swarmed like fireflies in the weedy-smelling mist now rising from the river. To Bartlemy's shout of “Westward, ho!” two of them changed course and darted our way. We stepped aboard the boat that reached us first.
“How far, sir?” inquired the waterman.
Bartlemy tossed him two pennies before replying, “Whitefriars.”
“Oho! As you please.” The man pushed beyond the reeds and steered his wherry to a place where the current was not so swift. “But when we draw nigh, I'll haul up and you gentlemen may leap ashore before I beat out to the open current.” He chuckled at this, though I was not inclined to join him. Our destination was a haunt of cutthroats and thieves, its very name used to frighten children. “Be good,” an exasperated mother or nurse might cry, “lest the devil come and bear thee off to Whitefriars!”
“You'll draw up to the landing and let us off like honest men,” Bartlemy said, and the waterman laughed outright. Once past the rushes he stretched his oars and bent his back, bearing up against the current with long steady strokes as frogs along the bank raised a rackety chorus. We sat uneasily for a few moments, until Bartlemy asked me, “What's to become of Sir John Oldcastle, then?”
This was so unexpected I couldn't fathom his meaning at first. Once I did, the first thing that came to mind was, “Falstaff. We must call him Falstaff.”
“Oldcastle!” the waterman exclaimed from the stern. “What a case! Will he get away with all his rogueries, you think?”
“We must call him Falstaff,” Bartlemy informed him, in a solemn tone that seemed to mock me.
“Pffft! Falstaff, Oldcastle, makes no bones, he's a rare 'un. Claiming to be the slayer of Hotspur—did you ever hear the like?”
The waterman wheezed with laughter as he pulled on his oars.
“Most rare,” Bartlemy said, in a voice that betrayed no opinion.
“Will he get away with it, think ye?”
“I'm not the one to ask,” my companion said, gazing at me as though I could reveal the fat knight's fate. But so far as I knew, that was still locked inside Master Will's head.
“By the Lord,” our boatman went on, “I almost hope he will. The tales he comes up with! Who'd believe he could twist his fat belly out of so many tight places …” He went on to recall his favorite bits of the play, and Bartlemy countered with his. I was amazed at how firm a hold Jack Oldcastle—Falstaff, rather—had taken on the public imagination. Coward, conniver, and cheat though he was, the waterman seemed to regard him as a hero—or at least juicy meat for conversation until he pulled up to Whitefriars stairs and tossed out a mooring line. “Here ye be, gentlemen. Watch your purses, feet, and necks, and perhaps we shall meet again.”
Once we were on the ground our boatman lost no time in casting off and pulling away. “Have you a dagger?” Bartlemy asked me. “Good—endeavor not to use it. Pull your cap down, meet no one's eyes and keep close—you'll be safe. Most like.”
We were in the dreaded “suburbs,” though at first glance it resembled nothing more than a down-at-heels section of London, with sagging shutters and tumbledown walls and a heavy smell of sour ale. The only light came from open doors and windows, and that little enough; they were like glowing patches on a sad, gray garment. Whitefriars once housed a monastery—hence the name—but all traces of religion had fled; the bursts of laughter and quarreling we heard sounded anything but pious. But except for the cat who flew out a window in front of us and hit the ground howling, I saw no violence. The place was quiet overall, but not with a comfortable quietness. The silence appeared to shift from one dark alley to the next, as though seeking its time to break out in lawlessness.
My companion had his route in mind: first along the wall marking Bridewell Prison, where he stopped to look into the windows of two alehouses. Then we cut across the old monastery grounds and paused at the window of another. When he shook his head and moved on, I protested, “I thought this was going to be simple.”
“Simple, yes. Easy, perhaps not. I know one more place to look.” He continued in a westerly direction, and to my relief the neighborhood improved a little. The Inns of Court lay not far away, which seemed convenient—with so many lawbreakers near to hand the law students had all the case studies they could ever want. After darting down too many narrow roads and alleys to count, we came to an alehouse with softly glowing windows and the merry notes of a fife and drum spilling into the street. By one torch mounted beside the door I barely made out the device carved on the sign: a crude bull with one bent horn.
After a glance in the window Bartlemy plucked my sleeve and whispered, “Here we are at last. Remember to keep your head down.” I followed him into an alley, then through an open door that led directly into the kitchen. A drip-nosed, slack-jawed boy was turning a joint of mutton on the fireplace spit while a stout woman peeled onions at the table. The woman straightened and put her hands on her hips, but Bartlemy silenced all protest with a coin tossed her way. He also helped himself to a turnip just before passing into the tap- room.
A pall of greasy smoke stung my eyes and a hail of voices hammered my ears as we made our way around the wall. Bartlemy found a stool at one end of a table, dropped onto it, and disappeared. He possessed an uncanny gift for making himself inconspicuous, like a turtle disappearing into its own shell. I tried to do the same by not looking at anyone, or at least not anyone close by. A serving maid brought ale, splashing liberally at every step, and my tankard became a refuge to hide behind.
Shapes and sounds began to emerge. All around the room I could make out whiskered faces bent closely together and heard somewhere behind me the murmurs of a private meeting. Near the fireplace a buxom, frowsy-headed woman had begun a song with the fife player. The attention in the room flowed toward its center, where an imposing figure in a leather jerkin, sleeves pushed up on his brawny arms, sat at the head of the table shaking a dice cup. The dim and spotty light fell on his right hand, notable for the absence of two fingers. He made his toss and crowed in triumph. As he stood up to propose a health, the red face of Peregrine Penny leapt out of the shadows. “Behold the man fortune smiles upon!”
Fortune shone with differing brightness on the other players around the table—young men, all. One gloomily studied the dice, his face hidden under the brim of a flat cap. Another, dressed in the sober gown of a law student, made a throw and cursed when it went against him. The third bounced up to take his turn, saying, “Count not your grain until the last rat's killed, Captain.” He also wore the sad colors of a student— except for his hat, a stylish, tall-crowned piece of work with a red plume. His accent marked him as a country squire's son. Perhaps his parents had sent him to the Inns of Court for polishing; if so, he hankered after polish of another kind. “Main!” he shouted after a favorable cast. “And now for the Nick—”
“Hold a moment, Master Coble.” Captain Penny raised his hand. “The hour grows late. Would you care to hazard all on this next cast?”
The young man glanced around him. From the happy flush on his round, pockmarked face, I guessed he had come to the point where it seemed impossible to lose. “I might. I might— what of you, Knopwood?”
His fellow student waved a hand. “I've lost enough.”
“You, then?” Master Coble offered his cup to the youth in the cap, who merely shook his head without raising it.
“It's between us lions.” Captain Penny rose to his feet again. “To the victor belong the spoils.”
All attention was now on the game. I have never played Hazard myself, but witnessed many rounds in the keeping room behind the stage, where hired players passed the time between scenes. Winning depends on rolling the right combination of numbers in a single or double cast. Master Coble's face gleamed with sweat as he shook the cup and made his toss. “Main!” cried the onlookers.
The young man scooped up the dice and rolled again. They struck the table with the sound of ice cracking.
“Three!” A bad cast
—I knew by the falling tone of the voices.
The captain leaned forward to take the cup and rolled a seven. “Another Main,” murmured a voice nearby. “Only a twelve will win it for him.” The rattling in the cup filled the room like water as tension rose. Then Penny made his cast, and the dice clattered merrily on the table. “Twelve!”
The entire room let out its breath. The frowsy-haired singer swept over to give the victor a noisy kiss. A serving maid filled his tankard, even as the captain raised it, shouting, “May all honest dicemen prosper thus!” He drained the tankard to hearty cheers.
“—and live to dance at their own wedding, rather than the end of a rope.” Though I could not see who said this, I knew that voice—roughened by drink and smoke, but unmistakable. It almost knocked me off the stool.
“Pray contain yourself,” Bartlemy mumbled through a mouthful of turnip. “You are not on stage.”
Kit raised his head—and his cup—in tribute to the winner. He looked the same, yet not the same, and in an instant I recognized the difference: a light growth of black hair on his upper lip.
Penny was laughing at the hangman joke, his hands stretched out to rake in the winnings. But the next moment he was staring at the point of a dagger directly under his nose. Master Coble had lunged upon the table to point his weapon, though his voice was not quite steady. “You—Let me see those dice.”
“Sir! What's your drift?”
“You play with false dice, that's my drift!”
A murmur rose from the tavern crowd, but the captain tempered it with a laugh. “Clean as a relic. See for yourself.”
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