Death Comes Hot

by Michael Jecks

  We had been there long enough for a quart and a half of ale by the time I saw Master John Blount in the doorway. He pulled off his gloves as he marched to our table. ‘That was a merry dance you led me,’ he said. ‘Who did that to your house?’

  ‘My house?’

  ‘All the doors broken, chairs slashed and damaged, and a woman crying that they were fiends.’

  I swear to you, the first thought in my mind was Hector. ‘What of the dog?’

  He shrugged.

  For once I had a feeling of sadness at the thought of the scruffy mutt. It was the idea that I might not see him again. The tatty little fleatrap had grown on me, I suppose.

  He must be dead.

  ‘Who was crying?’ I said with confusion. All I could think about was my lovely house, and especially my little strongroom with the bolt-studded, iron-lined door, which held my chest of money. My heart felt as if it had been gripped by a steel fist, and was being squeezed as the fist clenched. All that money …

  Blount was looking at Alice. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘This lady is Alice. She was Westmecott’s – er – wife. She knows Moll and the boy.’

  ‘Oh. You can go now,’ he said to her, and faced me.

  Alice leaned back. ‘And you can go swive a goat, Master,’ she said equably. ‘I’m enjoying my ale.’

  I don’t think any woman had spoken to Blount in so forthright a manner before. He had given her an instruction. Her refusal to pay him any heed was not expected. In his world, women were dainty things who obeyed. He blinked and stared at her, and clearly decided that she was determined to remain, so he dropped his voice and leaned towards me. ‘This wench, she’s a whore?’

  ‘I can hear you, you know,’ she said.

  ‘Damn your eyes, woman, will you let us speak?’ he blurted.

  It was entertaining, I confess. I had never seen my master in quite such confusion of spirit. He glared at Alice, who nonchalantly ignored him. It became rapidly apparent to me that Blount had no idea how to deal with this woman. A man he could simply have bullied into submission, threatening him until he left us to our conversation, but this woman was a different matter. He had the sense not to try to manhandle her from the room, because, for all her tatty appearance, there was a confidence that oozed from her. Whores often have it, I’ve noticed. Since they have little shame, it’s hard to embarrass them, and often a man will discover that any attempt to do so will leave him looking the fool.

  Blount turned so that his back was half turned to her. Glowering at me, he said, ‘So? Who did that to your house?’

  I glanced at Alice, but there seemed little point ignoring her or trying to conceal matters from her. I began my story, telling him about the Seymours. ‘You know that Thomas Seymour, the Lord Sudeley, married Lady Catherine? He was accused of treason and arrested, and had to be executed.’

  ‘I know all this,’ Blount growled.

  ‘And you will know that Lord Sudeley had responsibility towards a young lady living with Lady Catherine and under her protection?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘And that there were rumours of … impropriety between the Lord and his young ward?’

  ‘Yes, and he was forced to confess, and was executed, as you say. So what?’

  ‘A woman was working in the stews at that time. She was pregnant, but her child did not survive. However, she was invited to go and live in a great hall as wet-nurse to a child.’

  ‘This woman?’ Blount asked with frank distaste.

  ‘No, another – a woman called Moll. She was engaged, and when the child was finally weaned, she was retained as maid and dry-nurse. It was a job that she found accommodating.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Do you not see this? Moll, the boy – a lad who happens to have been born at about the time Thomas Seymour was arrested, and now many men expressing great interest in the lad and his mother?’

  ‘There can be no connection.’

  ‘Then consider this,’ I said, fixing him with a serious eye. ‘Whether the boy is or is not the son of a nobleman and his leman, could it be argued that he was? If so, others who worked for someone with a desire to earn favours at court might well decide to allege that the boy was indeed the result of an illicit union between Thomas Seymour and his … his …’

  ‘Be very careful,’ Blount grated.

  ‘His companion.’

  ‘Well and good,’ Blount said. He eyed me consideringly, then shot a look at Alice. ‘What of her?’

  I frowned. ‘Alice here was the companion of Hal Westmecott, the executioner. She left him. But when he asked me to find his wife and son, he told me her name was Moll. So he did not seek Alice here, but the woman who was Ben’s nursemaid. That means, I think, he must know of the story, and he is trying to find Moll and her son to take them to the Queen and denounce the mother.’

  ‘Which, true or not, would be embarrassing,’ Blount nodded slowly.

  There was no doubting that it would be easy to persuade a justice that Lady Elizabeth had indulged in adultery with Thomas Seymour, and that Ben was the fruit of that illegal relationship. And if that was the case, Lady Elizabeth could be in very great trouble. I didn’t need to point it out to Blount.

  ‘There is one other thing, however. As I said, Alice was the companion of Hal Westmecott. A man came to me to buy powder and said he was Westmecott, but according to Alice here, it was not him.’

  Blount shook his head as though to clear it. ‘What? You mean the man you were dealing with claimed to be Westmecott, but wasn’t?’

  I merely nodded, and Blount leaned back, his hands on the table, staring into the middle distance. ‘So this man Westmecott is an imposter. Where is the real Westmecott?’ He looked at Alice. ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘Not tall, but broad, fair-haired, with a scar on his face, and he’s lost the top of his finger,’ she said succinctly, holding up her finger to demonstrate.

  I gaped, aghast. ‘That was the man I saw dead on the floor in Westmecott’s chamber!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Blount said.

  ‘Yes! I went there to talk to him, but when I walked in, he was dead on the floor. I didn’t know who it was, because I’d already met Westmecott, or the man who called himself that, and he appeared a little later with a rug, and seemed to suspect me of the murder.’

  ‘He was carrying a rug?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So he had murdered the man and was bringing a means of removing him.’

  ‘Oh!’

  There seemed little else for me to say, really.

  ‘You didn’t suspect him?’ Blount said.

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  ‘The fact that he was there, that he had brought a rug. How did you dispose of the body?’

  ‘He said he could do that. He had ways, he said. So we rolled the body into the rug to conceal it, and he took it away.’

  ‘So you had seen him arrive with the article and didn’t suspect him?’

  ‘Of course not! I am not a murderer. I don’t think like that!’

  He looked at me with a keen sharpness. It was like being stabbed with a dagger that had been hidden behind a fine veil. Since he had hired me and paid me to be his assassin, I suppose I deserved it. He was not to know that I had never killed on his orders.

  ‘Raphe mentioned that you had some other difficulty,’ he said pointedly.

  ‘Um.’ I had no desire to discuss Anthony in front of Alice.

  ‘What did you do then? Did Westmecott come around again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘I don’t know. But a little later I saw him at the Seymours’ house.’

  He winced. ‘And a little later I found your house sorely battered. I think you can assume that Edward Seymour has learned of his brother’s death.’

  ‘The man calling himself Westmecott was with him when he marched to my house,’ I said.

  ‘You saw him?’

  ‘We sa
w the party, yes.’

  Master Blount nodded to himself. ‘So it would seem that the Seymours have you marked as a person they would like to speak with.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  He rose. ‘I would run and hide. I see little else you can do.’

  ‘Can we stay at your house for a little? Just until …’

  ‘No. You can return to me when this affair is sorted one way or another,’ he said shortly. ‘Until then, you are an embarrassment – and dangerous, both for me and for our principal. You can seek me out when Seymour is no longer a danger, or …’

  That was the point. The ‘or’. Because either Seymour must be removed, or I would die. Blount’s eyebrow lifted just a fraction, and we both knew which was the more likely outcome.

  Blount stalked from the room, and I was left staring at a crack in the wall’s plaster. I had no very happy thoughts.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know what I can do. I should leave London, I suppose. What of you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t go back to my house, and I can’t go to work again. I’d be too easy to pick up on the streets. If they were to find me …’

  ‘Why should they want to hurt you? I’m the one they’ll want to kill,’ I expostulated.

  She shrugged. ‘The man who killed my Hal won’t want me to be here, in case I tell stories about him and people realize he isn’t the real Hal. I am as much at risk as you. If he was happy to kill my husband, he’d hardly worry about removing me, an old whore.’

  Her tone was matter-of-fact, laced with a little stoicism, but while there was not a trace of self-pity, she looked distinctly mournful. And with her face like that, she was a different woman. With her features softened, the harsh lines of rancour were smoothed over, the trials of her hard life were swept away like old rushes, and in their place I saw a woman who had once been a young, attractive wench, with large eyes that would melt the heart of the most pitiless outlaw and have him begging her to take a sup with him.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ she demanded, catching my eye, and normal life was resumed.

  It was clear that I could not return to my home. Even if the housebreakers had left me a seat or table undamaged, the danger was that they could return at any moment. What I needed was a place where I could rest and think what I should do. Master Blount was clear enough that I was not welcome at his home, and I didn’t think it would be a good idea in any case. The fact was, many people knew I worked for him, and it would take little to realize that I might go to his house.

  Where else might I go? The Cardinal’s Hat? That was safer, no doubt, but I didn’t think that the bawd who ran the house of relaxation would welcome me. She had a soft spot for me, as so many of these tarts do, but the fact that I was a refugee and could bring danger to her own place meant she would be unlikely to want me there. I needed somewhere else.

  One man occurred to me.

  ‘I know where we can go. We should be safe there,’ I said.

  I knocked loudly on the door. There was an interval in which not a sound could be heard, and then the sound of slowly approaching footsteps.

  Jonah, Mark’s servant, opened the door, and subjected us to his most morose scrutiny. He glowered all the while with suspicion. He was a wizened, ill-kempt fellow, who looked as though he should have had a dewdrop fixed to the end of his nose permanently. He would not have looked out of place in a dungeon, serving the torturers with ale and cheese between the clicks of the rack’s ratchets.

  ‘Jonah, it is me. Is your master in?’

  ‘I’ll have to go and check.’

  ‘Be quick, then!’

  ‘I’ll take as long as I need to,’ he said. He slowly withdrew and closed the door again. I heard the bolt lock.

  I had a sudden thought. ‘Do you like hounds?’ I asked.

  Her look could not have been more confused if I had grown a second head. ‘What?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll soon find out,’ I said.

  It is fair, I think, to say that while Alice might have liked the companionship of a small lapdog, Peterkin was not built on those lines. When Jonah opened the door again, grudgingly admitting us to the hallway, there was a sudden plodding of paws. While Jonah slammed the door and thrust the bolts home, Alice suddenly caught her breath. If she had been confronted by a demon, she could not have looked more appalled.

  I have noticed that some people are more keen on keeping cats. They are less trouble, they say, and affectionate, without fawning. And they keep rats down. Except in my experience, they do nothing to control rats which are almost their own size. Rather, they assault the prettiest songbirds, any shrews or mice, and occasionally me, as the scars on one wrist can attest (the cat was lying on its back, and I thought it wanted its tummy rubbed).

  On the other hand, dogs will protect a house, see to the defence of their master, obey commands and, in short, be reliable members of the family.

  However, not all people feel as comfortable with a dog like Peterkin. This hound of Mark’s was as tall as Alice, if he stood on his hind legs – no, taller. As she took in his size, I had the impression that he was measuring her up for future amusement. Perhaps he considered her a dainty little treat to be consumed later. I could not be certain, but felt that there was a flaring of interest in his eyes as he took her in – a little spark, such as one might see in the eye of a demon welcoming a new victim to his pit. He padded towards us on paws the size of my fist.

  Alice was unimpressed by the sight of him, and as I remembered my scarred jaw and the lump on my head, it gave me no little pleasure to see how she recoiled at the sight. She retreated before him, until her back was at the door, and then, as he shoved his nose into her groin, she whimpered.

  I patted the brute’s back with a sense of comradeship before strolling off after Jonah. After some moments, Peterkin followed after us, and then there came the slightly frantic pattering of Alice’s feet. Reaching me, she took my arm in her hands and clung to me all the way to Mark’s chamber. It was not an unpleasant sensation.

  The room was, as usual, a precise duplicate of a room that has been struck by a cannonball – no, an artillery barrage. Papers had been flung on every surface. Where there had been space, more armour and weaponry appeared to have materialized for little reason. The great hound sauntered in and shook his entire body, and slobber flew through the air to land on a sheaf of papers on Mark’s lap. He glanced at his pet affectionately and looked up at me.

  ‘What do you want now?’

  Hardly an encouraging welcome, but I indicated my human limpet. ‘This lady is Alice. She was involved in the matter I spoke of with you …’

  ‘Come in, my dear, please,’ Mark said immediately. His attention, once distracted from the papers, was wholeheartedly in favour of the wench. He all but threw the papers aside and tried to spring to his feet. His age and infirmity were against him, but he yet cast a languishing glance at her. The man was already undressing her, I saw, but that was the sort of man Mark was. He could never pass through a room without doting on every female form within it.

  I interrupted his gaze quickly, saying, ‘Mark, the lady is under threat of her life.’

  ‘Are you the lady he told me of?’ Mark said, seemingly deaf to all but Alice’s voice. ‘Please, you must be chill. Sit yourself by my fire, my dear. It must have been a terrible shock to you, you so young and … Please, you will partake of some wine, and a little cheese and beef?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Quite. Jonah, would you … God’s teeth, where is the useless … Jonah!’

  ‘What?’

  At the response behind him, Mark gave an instructive impression of a startled faun. ‘Well, I … wine and—’

  ‘I did hear you.’

  He wandered off, his head bowed, and Mark continued to survey Alice with much the same gleam in his eye that his hound had borne. ‘So, are you the lady my friend here was looking for?’

  ‘Yes – and then a
gain, no,’ I said, not that my presence was required. I felt rather superfluous, if you know what I mean.

  ‘How intriguing,’ Mark said, without for an instant taking his eyes from Alice.

  I told him briefly of the matter, how Alice and I had met and the situation in which we found ourselves. ‘And so I was hoping that you could help us,’ I finished.

  Mark said, ‘Oh, yes. Of course. I see. Here? Oh, I don’t think we have space for both of you. It would be …’

  Alice had been fully aware of his attention. While he had been studying her figure in the way of a paederast artist studying a possible subject, she had been keenly giving the room her own minute examination. Clearly, what she saw was pleasing. I could almost hear the chink of coins being counted in her brain. ‘I think it would be very kind of you to put us up. Obviously, I need Jack for my protection.’

  ‘Oh, don’t have any fears on that score. Our Peterkin will drive away any foe foolish enough to try to break in or harm you,’ Mark said.

  We all turned to view the hound, who was currently sitting before the fire and assiduously scratching at his ear with an expression of acute gratification. On noticing our stares, his paw gradually slowed in its whirling motion, and he clearly grew uncomfortable, until his paw came to rest some six inches from his head, while he looked from one to another of us with an air of questioning innocence, as though he knew his own behaviour was irreproachable, so why were we viewing him in such an accusing manner?

  ‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘I think I would like Jack here, too.’

  SIX

  I woke and stared about me in alarm for some moments before my brain caught up with my eyes and reminded me that I was safe. So often I have awoken to a strange room, and shortly thereafter been reminded of my activities by the size of the bruise on my head or the aching from within. This time, I recalled no reason for a headache, other than the foul wine that Mark foisted upon us. He was fondly convinced that it was as good as the finest Bordeaux, but I could tell from the first sip that either he had been sold foul dregs from the last of an ancient barrel or he was so foolish as to think that he could buy the best for the price of the worst vinegar in London.