‘My difficulty is that I cannot hope to find a woman like that in all the brothels of London,’ I said. ‘How many women would fit his description?’
Mark nodded. I had first met him because he had gone to the Cardinal’s Hat, the brothel where my friend Piers worked, with a view to an energetic bout with a pair of the doxies. Mark occasionally needed rest from his mental labours, and he had a fine eye for a buxom wench with a welcoming gleam in her eye.
He looked up now. ‘Why don’t you tell John Blount?’
I shivered. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘Why?’
‘I doubt he would like to hear that I was consorting with a mere executioner.’
‘Then don’t tell him. However, Blount must know dozens of men about the town who could help. His agents are everywhere. One of them must know where this lad has been hidden away.’
He suddenly stopped and peered closer at me. ‘Wait! You can’t tell him, can you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your reluctance. It is all of a part. And when I ask about your master, you look away every time, as though that thought cannot be countenanced. See? You do it again.’
‘You are mistaken.’
He leaned back in his seat and studied me complacently. ‘With a matter such as this, you would usually have hurried to John Blount, and the fact you have not indicates clearly to me that you do not think he would help you. Worse, he might hinder you, or so you fear. I am right, am I not?’
I couldn’t answer directly. As I opened my mouth, I realized that his monster was standing at my side. His drooping jowls oozed drool, and his amber eyes stared at me intently, as though wondering what flavour my marrow might have.
Mark had spoken again, and I shook my head. ‘Sorry?’
‘You think that John Blount might feel unhappy to be involved in such a matter and, most likely, very unimpressed with you being involved. He has higher aspirations for you, after all.’
‘Yes. That’s why I can’t tell him.’
‘Ah. In that case, I can suggest an easy solution for you. I shall ask him on behalf of a fellow I know. I can tell him it’s a matter of interest to me and no one else.’
I gaped. It was the perfect solution. Blount need never know I had any part to play in the matter, I need not explain anything about Ben, and his evacuation to a safer place could be effected with nobody any the wiser.
‘Would you do that?’
Mark beamed. ‘Of course. And in the meanwhile, we could do worse than looking at some of the brothels near here, just to see if she might be there.’
I should not have been surprised. I knew him well enough. Still, I was relieved to hear he would help me and gave a short gasp of joy, and perhaps it sounded menacing, because suddenly I was pinned to the seat when an over-enthusiastic Peterkin jumped on to my breast, causing not a little pain. Not that I cared at the time, because I was much more concerned about the massive jaws that held my throat in a gentle but very wet embrace.
‘Peterkin, get down, boy! Down! There are many brothels,’ he said with a beaming smile. ‘We could go about the nearer ones and try to find her.’
It was a thought. ‘How many brothels are there in London? There must be many thousands of them.’
‘Then we should set off,’ he said. He stood, staring about him with an air of sudden dejection.
‘What is it?’
‘Where is my hat?’ he said, mournfully gazing about him like a child who has lost his favourite toy.
We started at a small brothel Mark knew near Ludgate. From there, we walked westwards towards Westminster, stopping off at a place near the Mews opposite Whitehall. Here Mark seemed well known. Having gone to three different houses of variable virtue, he took me to another place nearer to Westminster. There, he told me, were more expensive whorehouses, where knights and nobles were keen to relax after a hard day’s hunting, drinking and gluttony.
At each, as soon as we entered, Mark would stand and stare openly at the wenches. It was all he could do not to dribble. After the first, when we were still near Whitehall, he took me into a cheaper residence suitable for the servants of nobles. There, while Mark stared adoringly at a couple of smiling hussies who showed a little leg to get his attention, I spoke to the dark-haired woman of the house, who gave me to understand that men with questions like mine could get out of her parlour, since time was the shape of a silver penny, and she had little enough of both.
‘I only want to know if you have a woman called Moll here, with a son called Ben.’
‘I have plenty of women. What do you want her to look like?’
‘A good figure, with weight to her top, and a thin face,’ I said, trying to remember Westmecott’s precise description.
‘I could have. Fair-haired?’
‘No, red.’
‘What did you want her name to be?’
‘No, no, I am looking for a lady with the name of Moll, who has a son called Ben. I don’t want you to make one up.’
We were soon out of that one. She hustled us out like two vagrants found in her doorway.
Outside, we continued on our search, but although two madams reckoned they had just the girl for me, it was clear that they were merely seeking to sell me one of their stable. We stood outside the fifth, and I looked up and down the roadway. There was a tall, thin, haggard woman in the roadway. She walked like a duchess on hard times. I could see her face was ravaged by harsh living. It always astonished me that women like her would keep on travelling to London to try to make a living. Even peasants must surely know that life in the city was not easy. It was cruel and hard even to those with youth and vigour on their side. But even those must sink at some point.
This woman had neither looks nor health, as far as I could see. But then, when a man looked at the women about the houses of ill repute, there were often women like this. Poor souls who, perhaps, had once made a reasonable living inside the houses, but who were so over-used that they were evicted from their rooms and now plied their trade as best they might in the roads outside the brothels. The next stage was to be moved away from these haunts to try to sell themselves to the drunks in a tavern or inn, or to fall to the worst stage, at the alehouses where the sailors congregated. It was a short walk from there to death in the river or a stab for her purse.
I grunted. ‘This is a waste of time.’
‘Then go and tell him you can’t find her.’
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ I said, and rubbed my throat thoughtfully. ‘He may not wish to hear it.’
‘Well, there are several more houses I can think of,’ he said.
‘What is the point? There are so many of them, the chance of finding her in any of them is remote!’
‘Well, if you feel like that, I might as well go back inside,’ he said hopefully.
‘What else can we do?’
‘Perhaps go to the Cardinal’s Hat? At least there Piers won’t push you from the door.’
He had a point. It was a tempting thought. Piers would also provide me with an ale or two, if I was in luck.
I left him as he entered the nearest brothel, and directed my steps to an alley leading to the river. Before I entered it, I was struck by the sight of the haggard woman again. She was at the side of the brothel, watching Mark. I thought I could detect wistfulness in her stance, as if she was thinking that once he would have gone to see her. I felt a surge of sympathy for her.
It must be hard – I mean, to be a gormless peasant left without support in a city like London. So long as she didn’t expect me to slip her a coin for a knee-trembler in an alley. I wouldn’t waste my pennies on a raddled tart like her when there were fresh strumpets waiting on the other side of the river.
I waited at the river bank, but the wherries were all downriver. Rather than wait and waste the day, I chose to stroll over the bridge to the Southwark bank, and made my way to the bear pits and thence the area known for its Wincheste
r Geese, the whores that thronged the banks and helped keep the Bishop of Winchester’s coffers so well filled. There, with a splendid view of the pits, stood the Cardinal’s Hat, where my friend Piers resided.
It was a kindness to call him ‘friend’, really, because he was more of an acquaintance. Once he had been a barber, and had been a good one – but then he got to enjoy his drink too much. It was expensive: it cost him his wife, his children and, finally, his business, but because he was a large man, with fists the size of a child’s head, he was welcomed at the Cardinal’s Hat as an apple-squire, a man to guard the doors, to be there to throw out unwanted guests, and to take on such other duties as the madam saw fit to pass to him. In his more sober moments, he would cut the hair of the bawds, and he was still very capable of doing so – as long as he had not already taken a quart or two of strong ale.
‘Do you know how many wenches there are in this city?’ Piers demanded, incredulous, as he poured a fresh pot of sack from a leather flask. We were sitting in the brothel’s entrance hall, and a fresh barrel had been set up ready. I was drinking a smooth ale that was strong enough to guarantee that most visitors would soon lose all their inhibitions – and financial sense. ‘There are more whores in London than you have lice! There are more than the fleas on a mastiff! This city has … thousands! How do you expect to find one with a boy in a city this size?’
‘That was why I came here,’ I said. ‘I have little doubt that you are right, but I have to try.’
‘Why?’
I pulled my shirt aside and pointed to the thin line left by Hal’s sword on my neck.
He peered. ‘A scratch like that? He wasn’t serious.’
‘He will be next time, and if he isn’t, other people will be!’ I said hotly. It was my throat, after all. I felt I had a right to be protective.
‘What would you think we can do? Ask every street-walker whether she was married to Westmecott? Wander round all the brothels and ask the tarts? Go into them and try to see how many boys they have working there with their mothers, clearing up and cooking, holding horses, taking torches to lead men home … Do you have any idea how many whores have bastards with them?’
I nodded, feeling as glum as Westmecott when I’d left him earlier. As he suggested, it was remarkably unlikely that I would find the mother, let alone the boy.
Sipping my ale, I sighed. ‘There must be some way of finding the woman, this Moll.’
‘A woman of four-and-twenty, big breasts, red hair? All I can think of is looking for a place that caters for men who like women of that type,’ Piers said. His eyes widened with the effort of alcohol-infused concentration. ‘If she has a pleasing manner, she could be installed in a place that is well positioned for the wealthy, I suppose, especially if her boy is willing and helpful. Some better houses might agree to take her on.’
‘Where should I start?’ I asked.
‘There is a brothel I have heard of, which is up near the Bishop’s Gate. They talk about their whores being there to tempt the travellers from the north, but it’s just a sales gimmick, I think. They’re just ordinary wenches, same as we get here.’
‘Oi, we ain’t all ordinary,’ a voice called.
‘You certainly aren’t,’ he said without a glance.
‘That’s a nice way to talk to a lady,’ she said.
She was a slim little thing, with fair hair and pale skin. Very appealing in a sort of waif-like manner, but not to my taste. She looked more the kind of woman who would tire a fellow out, whereas I preferred a more peaceable sort.
‘Why’re you lookin’ for this wench, anyway?’ She had approached us and now stood before me with her arms akimbo, her eye wandering over me with interest.
I have been told that my face is very pleasing, marred only by a slight scar. Women tend to see trustworthiness in me, and they want to mother me. This one looked more like a feral cat eyeing up a shrew.
‘I have been asked to find her by her husband. He is sore distressed at the thought of his son and not having seen him in three years or more.’
‘Means he probably beat the boy and her until she decided to go.’
‘Quite possibly,’ I agreed, thinking of the grim visage Westmecott showed the world.
‘Who is this husband?’
‘He’s not the sort of man she’d want to live with,’ I guessed. ‘It’s Hal Westmecott, the executioner.’
She paled. ‘Why’d she want to go back to him, then?’
‘I don’t think she will. I doubt he wants her.’
‘So it’s only that he wants his son? Waited until his boy had been fed and watered and protected, and now he’s of an age to become a useful worker, the man wants him back, eh? And at the same time, he’ll deprive his wife of the only companion she’s been able to rely on? That don’t sound friendly to me!’ the harpy announced.
‘I am no child-stealer! If either of them don’t agree, I’ll just leave them in peace.’
‘Oh, really. Why? How much is he paying you?’
‘Nothing.’
Piers looked at me pityingly. My inquisitor laughed aloud.
‘Ho, yes. You’re prepared to spend months just wandering the streets and speaking to the wenches, and all you’ll get is the man’s thanks at the end of it, eh? I should just think so,’ she finished with withering scorn.
‘Well, thank you for your help,’ I said to Piers, rising from my stool.
‘Where are you going?’ the woman said.
‘To see whether she might be at the house Piers mentioned,’ I said loftily.
‘Her name’s Moll, you reckon?’ she said with a sharp little look at me, her eyes full of a strange suspicion.
‘Yes. Moll or Molly.’
She gave me that odd glance again. ‘I know Moll. You’ll be goin’ to the wrong place. I can take you where you’ll find her.’
It is rare indeed that I find someone quite so accommodating, but as I have said before, I do have the good fortune to possess an honest, open face which has led to many women wanting to trust me and mother me. It is good to know that a fellow can make his way based on his charm and intellect.
I know that it may surprise some to see me placing my trust in a common trull, but the fact was I knew perfectly well that such women were often looking for a clean-living fellow who could protect them. This was no different. True, she was a little sharp of tone, and she was capable of trying to fondle my significant parts – by which I mean my purse – but she was clearly more enthusiastic about helping a fellow in need than in trying to fleece me blind at that moment. It was all to the good.
We took the bridge. The weather was growing less than clement for May time. I was more used to balmy, sunny days, but today it was definitely cool, and a fine drizzle was blowing in our faces. It was one of those days when the river looked grey as old steel, and there was a spray being thrown up from the ships and wherries that plied their trade. Not many were going out. A man trying to shoot the bridge in this weather would be brave indeed.
‘How do you know of this woman?’ I asked as we walked.
‘There are some girls I know. She’s one.’
‘What, you mean you have a circle of companions?’
She cast me a glance of frowning suspicion. ‘We shouldn’t have friends?’
‘No, no, I just meant …’
‘We get to know others of our age and profession, same as you do, I suppose. I’ve known Moll for a while.’
‘And she’s running from her husband?’
‘Many women do. And they need support of their friends.’
I mulled over that. ‘You mean you know of others, no matter where they are in the city?’ That was an interesting idea: that any of the wenches could send a message to their peers had never occurred to me. It was sensible, certainly, for it meant that many of them could warn others of the more dangerous clients. But only the higher level of bawd would have access to such a network, surely. The lowest street-walker no doubt had to make her own ju
dgement.
She walked with a deliberate swiftness, barely glancing from one side to the other, which was a surprise. She was evidently keen to get on with this introduction, and I had to admire that in the woman. Most whores would be spending their time shooting coquettish little looks at the men about, eyeing up the next gull. I’ve never known one to ignore all the men about her like this one. I had to hurry a little to keep up with her. Especially when we came to a cart on the bridge, with a man swearing and gesticulating at a fellow with a barrow who had allowed a load of cabbages to roll free, and who was hurtling about the road gathering them up before they could be trampled. He, for his part, was responding in a low monotone of vile language.
The way between the two vehicles was narrow, and she slipped through like a tumbler on a stage. I tried to follow, but my sword’s scabbard got caught in the spokes of the cart, and I was forced to dicker about, trying to retrieve it. By the time I had, the woman had passed on through the crowds.
I cried out, ‘Hoi!’ and hurried after her, but only caught a glimpse of her hat and coif as she passed up Bridge Street. Really, she should have realized that I was falling behind. I had to hurry, one hand on my sword’s hilt, the other on my pistol, to catch up with her.
She was turning off to the left as I came close.
‘Woman, hold hard,’ I said. ‘Wait! I don’t even know your name to call to you!’
She threw me a look over her shoulder, in which disdain and annoyance were close bedfellows. ‘You can call me Peg, if you must.’
I was almost at her side now as we walked up Crooked Lane, a narrower street where only the ubiquitous London cars could travel. The longer carts were fourteen feet by four, and could only be manoeuvred along the broader ways, while cars, being only twelve by three, could cope with narrower ways. Even so, when one came past, Peg and I were forced to take refuge in a doorway while the driver snarled and swore at us for slowing him. Peg shouted out, ‘You polled knave!’ The man turned and tried to cut at her with his whip, but he missed, and instead caught me on the shoulder. I roared with pain, and the man took one look at my sword, pistol and face, which surely was as red as a choleric publican’s, and urged his knackered beast on with more urgency as he saw my hand on my pistol. I wasn’t attempting to pull it and fire at him – I was merely holding it so it did not slip from its moorings – but I suppose he caught sight of a man with his hand on a steel handgun, and drew a sensible conclusion.
Death Comes Hot Page 4