Rags of Time

by Michael Ward

  ‘I told Mr Petty you were unlikely to know about Sir Joseph’s death, Tom, as I think you were out yesterday when his body was discovered?’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ Tom nodded. ‘We had finally emptied the spice from the holds. It was my first free time, so I took a wherry along the river to see what had changed on the waterfront in my absence.’

  Edmund’s expression softened.

  ‘Tom, I am sorry about this. Sir Joseph has died in unpleasant, but also mysterious, circumstances. As you can imagine, this has greatly shocked the other Merchant Adventurers. Mr Petty was instructed to investigate immediately and visited Kensington at first light today to view Sir Joseph’s body and survey the scene. As a fellow member of the Adventurers, I was asked to accompany Mr Petty as I am familiar with where Sir Joseph lived. Did you know he kept bees? He gave my father some jars of honey—not to eat, but to treat that dreadful sore on his leg. I happened to mention Father’s condition to Sir Joseph one day at the Exchange and he insisted I visit and collect some honey. He said it was a guaranteed cure if applied liberally and regularly in a poultice. Frankly I didn’t believe it, but Father was desperate so I collected the honey from Sir Joseph’s house about a week later and, do you know, it worked perfectly. Absolutely extraordinary. Father was so grateful. So to see him yesterday…’

  Edmund’s voice faltered as his face clouded with the memory of Sir Joseph’s dead body.

  Petty looked at Tom and continued. ‘Mr Dalloway kindly accompanied me to Sir Joseph’s estate and I found these feathers where his body was discovered. I think they could be material to the cause of death. When you learn more of the circumstances, Mr Tallant, you will know why this matter must be investigated with as little public attention as possible. The Merchant Adventurers wish to establish the facts of Sir Joseph’s death, but it will not be in anyone’s interest if this knowledge becomes widely known and taken up as title-tattle on the streets and in the penny pamphlets.’

  ‘Tom, we must keep this within the merchant family,’ Edmund added, gripping his arm. ‘When Mr Petty mentioned the feathers and the need to seek someone with expertise, I thought immediately of you. Someone who understands hawking but whose discretion can be relied upon.’

  ‘But if Sir Joseph has been killed, and if something is amiss’, Tom said, ‘the magistrate will have to be informed.’

  ‘And he will be,’ Petty nodded, ‘once we have established the facts—with your help, I hope, Mr Tallant.’

  Tom puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well I’m not sure what I can do. Yes, I did learn a little about training and hunting with hawks from my uncle Jonas but that was a number of years ago. I do not run any birds. They need regular handling and flying and I am away too often on merchant business.’

  Petty nodded. ‘I realise that, Mr Tallant, but even basic information may help at this stage. I have little else to go on.’

  Tom looked at Edmund, who had a pleading expression like a hungry puppy. He had seen that look before and felt a weary resignation. He didn’t have the time to spare as there was a great deal of work still to do from the voyage, booking in the cargo and repairing the ship. But Tom did not take to this Mr Petty, and he did not want to make his friend look foolish to the investigator.

  ‘Edmund. What do you want me to do?’

  It was Petty who answered. ‘Mr Tallant, I need you to come with me to Kensington at the earliest opportunity to see Sir Joseph’s body and the scene of his death. Would this afternoon be convenient?’

  Tom was annoyed by Petty’s presumption. His offer of help had been to Edmund, as a personal favour. He was being put under pressure by this agent and he did not like it. However, Sir Joseph’s body could not be left without burial for long, and he reluctantly nodded his assent. Better to deal with the matter quickly and then return to his business. It wouldn’t help to be uncooperative.

  Petty and Edmund stood, preparing to leave, but Tom held his old friend back. ‘Edmund could I have a word?’

  ‘Mr Tallant, thank you for your assistance and I will see you this afternoon.’ Robert Petty bowed slightly and strode from the room.

  Edmund looked apologetic. ‘Tom, I am sorry to bother you with this but it will only take an hour or so.’

  ‘Will it, Edmund? We’ll see, but I need to ask about another matter.’

  Tom paused. There was silence. He did not want to pose the question on his mind, for fear of the possible answer.

  ‘Alice Rushworth?’ Edmund suggested.

  ‘Yes. Alice. Was she… is she?’

  ‘Poor Alice was struck down by the plague less than two months after you sailed for India. She was dead within a week. So we’ll never know if she was… in the condition she claimed just before your departure.’

  Sweet Alice. A young beauty who welcomed Tom to her bed in the months before his departure for India. Two days before he sailed they had a furious row. She told Tom she thought she was with child. Tom accused her of making it up to persuade him to stay. His last memory of Alice was her tear-stained face, empty and desolate, as he rode from her house.

  In the three days since he’d docked in London, he’d expected Alice to walk into the warehouse at any moment. And if she did, would she be alone?

  Tom listened to the port outside. He could smell the endeavour and opportunity. Now Alice would never come. And he realised, God forgive him, that this made him glad.

  Chapter 2

  The afternoon of 22nd October 1639

  Kensington

  Cold air hit Tom in the face as he stepped onto the cellar steps. Jesu be praised. The stink will be less.

  Robert Petty stood in front of him, raising his lantern to reveal a chamber extending deep under Sir Joseph Venell’s house. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Tom saw a faint glow ahead from a small room to his left. Dust and damp filled his lungs as he edged carefully down the steps to the cellar floor. A grey-haired servant stepped past him with another lantern. Tom caught his unshaven, haggard expression in the lamplight. Little sleep in the Venell household last night. Too much fear of what the future held.

  ‘The previous owner stored his wine and liquor in this cellar,’ the servant’s broken voice echoed through the dark chamber. ‘Master Joseph did not drink, so we have never used it… until now. When Mr Petty here said we could not bury the master yet, I knew we had better get him out of the heat, being so warm for October. We had the devil’s own job getting a table down the stairs, but we wanted the master laid out proper-like but private, for his last day in his home. Not that this place brought him much joy.’

  The servant led the way towards a low room lit by four candles in brass stands positioned at each corner of a long rectangular table. Lying on his back, on the tabletop, was Sir Joseph Venell, still fully clothed, his face and head covered by a muslin cloth. The cool cellar delayed decay but also kept the body away from prying eyes. The Merchant Adventurers would approve of such arrangements.

  In the chamber there was barely room to shuffle down either side of the table. Petty went down Venell’s left and stopped at the top behind the merchant’s covered head, facing Tom and the servant. Tom went to stand by Venell’s right shoulder. The servant remained near the entrance by his master’s feet, holding back slightly. This was official business, not for him.

  Petty told the servant to pass the two candles at Sir Joseph’s feet to the top of the table. Their flames flickered as they moved, casting shadows onto the wall and ceiling above. Tom took the proffered candles and placed one by Venell’s left shoulder and the other by his right. Petty put his lantern on the table, looked straight at Tom then, without saying a word, removed the muslin cloth.

  This time Tom was too distracted to notice Petty’s eyes. Sir Joseph’s face and hands were not marked. There were grass stains on the knees of his breeches and dried blood on his jerkin. But otherwise the 53-year-old Merchant Adventurer appeared untouched. Except, that is, for the crown of his head. Tom bent down to take a closer look and, as he neared Sir Jose
ph’s face, was finally confronted by the unmistakable smell of death.

  Sir Joseph had fine hair, cut short for comfort under his formal wig. It was plastered to his scalp, matted with congealed and crusted blood. The scalp itself was ruptured in six or seven places with short, livid, dark red wounds. It looked like he had been beaten with a jousting mace.

  Tom fought the nausea rising inside and took a step back, stumbling against the wall. He shut his eyes and gripped the edge of the table as he struggled to maintain his equilibrium.

  ‘Not pretty, is it?’ Petty said. ‘But that’s not what killed him. Look at his right temple.’

  Reluctantly Tom opened his eyes and lowered himself onto his haunches in the narrow space between the table and the wall, his eyes level with Sir Joseph’s defiled head. Petty passed the lantern to Tom who held it close to Sir Joseph’s face.

  ‘Turn his head away from you,’ said Petty.

  Tom was used to handling the dead, having buried too many shipmates at sea, but was shocked by the dead merchant’s wounds. His single desire now was to escape the small dark chamber in this cold and lonely house as soon as possible. Holding the lantern in his left hand above the victim, Tom used his right to ease Sir Joseph’s head to the left and then pushed it more firmly. He bent over again.

  ‘There’s a dark purple bruise covering his right temple and part of the skull above,’ Tom commented. ‘And I can feel a soft swelling at the centre of the bruise. You think this was the fatal blow?’

  Petty nodded. ‘Cracked open Sir Joseph’s skull, I suspect, and caused bleeding from the brain.’

  Tom gently probed the swelling with his fingers. It was not large and there was a small, dry wound at its centre, indicating a steady leakage of blood before death. Poor Sir Joseph had met his end slowly.

  Tom scanned the rest of the body. There was something odd about Sir Joseph’s clothes—of course, he was in beekeeping attire. Tom surveyed the neat jerkin and breeches. They looked new, the jerkin resplendent with a large bee embroidered on the left breast, underneath a motto in English: “We profit through industry.” Clearly Venell had taken his pastime seriously.

  Tom had seen enough and needed air. He motioned to Petty that they should leave the chamber. Minutes later they were outside, standing in silence, savouring the fresh breeze. Tom studied the stone house in front of him. Despite his wealth, Venell’s two-storey home, fronted by simple mullioned windows, was not impressive. A modest stable block stood to the right but there were no outhouses, towers or turrets. It looked like a local squire’s residence, not home to one of the richest men in the city.

  Inside, the house had been drab. There was a single chair and table in the main room and another high-backed seat by the cold, empty fireplace. Cheap wall hangings depicted scenes from the Bible but otherwise Tom had not seen any sign of ornament.

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ Petty said. ‘What did he spend his money on? By all accounts, precious little. Sir Joseph Venell was one of those singular people who loved to acquire wealth but not to spend it. For him, the possession of money was everything.’

  ‘It is a sad, solitary place,’ Tom reflected. ‘But you did not bring me to Kensington to view the property.’

  ‘Indeed. I would value your opinion on Sir Joseph’s wounds, Mr Tallant. But first, shall we inspect the place where he was discovered as it may shed more light on the cause of his death? It is not far from here.’

  Tom welcomed the prospect of a brief walk to dispel the chill damp of the cellar and smell of decay. The weather was changing but, even though cloud was coming in from the west, it was still pleasant for the time of year. Petty led them along Sir Joseph’s tree-lined driveway, away from the house. After 200 yards, he stepped off the drive and turned to his right, through a gap in the trees, and walked towards a gate in the low wall that ran alongside the driveway. Through the gateway Tom could see the ground sloped down into pasture land below.

  ‘From here on, Mr Tallant, please can you follow my footsteps closely, and be careful to only tread where I do.’

  Tom nodded as Petty opened the gate and stepped through. The two men worked their way down the slope, through a copse, to the edge of a large meadow. Trees lined either side as it descended to a low hedge at the bottom, with a stream beyond the hedge and a smaller field beyond.

  The meadow was empty and its grass lush for the time of year. Tom noticed a series of branches, used as stakes in the ground across the field to their right and down the slope from where they were standing.

  Petty bent down and looked carefully along the top of the meadow grasses. ‘Unfortunately, it is as I suspected,’ he murmured to himself.

  ‘What is, Mr Petty?’ Tom asked.

  Petty looked up. ‘Forgive me, Mr Tallant, allow me to explain. When I arrived here at first light today, the dew was heavy on the ground and you could see clearly where the grass had been disturbed and, in a number of places, trodden by feet.’

  ‘So this is where Sir Joseph was found?’

  ‘Yes, yes… over there,’ he said, pointing to the largest stake impaled in the field. ‘But the dew has lifted and the breeze has been blowing on the grass. The pathway is now much less clearly defined.’

  ‘Which is why you—’

  ‘Yes, I placed the markers this morning to identify the different patterns and destinations of the footprints. As you can see, they appear to be random.’

  Tom looked at Petty anew. Clearly he had done this sort of work before.

  They worked their way slowly down the meadow, Tom stumbling on rocks hidden in the long grass. They reached the spot where the thickest branch was rammed into the firm soil. The surrounding grass was still flattened.

  Petty stopped and pointed. ‘This is where Sir Joseph’s stockman found his master, lying on his front. He was still alive, just, murmuring something about being a sinner, his punishment and—’ Petty paused and fixed Tom with his steady gaze. ‘—and the wings of demons. The stockman is sure of it.’

  Petty’s eyes remained fixed on Tom. ‘He didn’t know what to do for the best, so stayed with his master, attempting to reassure him. Eventually, after Sir Joseph had been still for some time, the man hauled him onto his shoulders and carried him back to the house. You can see his footsteps going up the slope to another gate at the top of the field, there on our left. He had entered the meadow through the same gate and I questioned him carefully about the state of the grass in that area of pasture where he had entered and left. He said there were no footsteps other than his. He was sure no one had been that way.’

  Tom examined the spot where Sir Joseph Venell had fallen. A large stone was streaked with dry blood at the lowest point of the flattened grass.

  ‘I think that is what did for him,’ Petty explained. ‘As you can see, this field is littered with rocks, hidden among the long grass. I suspect Sir Joseph has fallen full length and cracked the side of his head on that one,’ pointing to the stone by Tom’s feet. ‘His head was at that end, where you are standing, with his body sloping up the hill, when he was discovered. Would you stay there for a moment please, Mr Tallant?’

  Petty turned and walked back the way they had come. He stopped ten yards away and turned to face Tom. Behind Petty, Tom could see the faint impression of a line of disturbed grass leading up to the gate where they had entered the meadow. In front of Petty lay a confusion of flattened areas, with lines of trodden ground in between.

  ‘It looks to me that Sir Joseph entered the meadow through the top gate where we came in and walked down to this point, where I am standing. If you were to continue the line he was taking it would end over there, on the other side of the field, where Sir Joseph kept his bees.’

  Petty was pointing and Tom, looking over his shoulder, could see small boxes in the distance near the tree line, which he took to be hives.

  ‘After reaching here, it is not possible to be certain but there were signs this morning that Sir Joseph then stumbled in a number of differe
nt directions, falling here, here and here.’ Petty pointed to the branches impaled in the ground around him. ‘Before staggering further down the slope to his final resting place, where you stand.’

  Tom noticed for the first time that the tops of two stakes were tied with twine. He pointed at them.

  ‘What do these signify, Mr Petty?’

  Petty paused and rubbed the twine between his forefinger and thumb.

  ‘They indicate where I found the falcon feathers,’ he replied.

  Tom said nothing. It was his turn to hold the agent in his gaze. He could see what Petty was suggesting and the ridiculous idea irritated him. Wings of demons and falcon feathers. He had no more time to waste on this nonsense.

  ‘It’s not possible, you know.’

  ‘What is not possible, Mr Tallant?’

  ‘Hunting falcons could not have killed Venell.’

  ‘I know that, Mr Tallant. He was killed by the blow to his head when he fell on the rock.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t have been attacked by falcons either, for two good reasons.’

  Petty looked at him with steady eyes.

  ‘First, I have never heard of hunting falcons attacking a person, certainly not in the sustained manner that would have caused those injuries. They hunt to eat, Mr Petty, and to the best of my knowledge they do not have the taste for human flesh. However, let us assume for one moment that, for some unexplained reason, a peregrine, or more likely a pair—for that is how they often hunt—decided to repeatedly attack a man’s head. If that had happened, Mr Petty, you would have found more than a man’s body and a few feathers on the field. You would have found the broken remains of two hunting birds.’

  Robert Petty walked back to Tom and stood close to him, listening intently.

  ‘Have you ever seen a peregrine falcon execute a hunting stoop, Mr Petty? They climb to a great height and dive on to their intended target at a prodigious speed. Faster than an archer’s arrow, I wager. They are particularly partial to wood pigeons, which are not small birds. If you retrieve a falcon’s prey, such as a pigeon, you notice the falcon has not attacked the pigeon’s head or body. No, it goes for the wing, smashing through the bone near the shoulder. This immediately halts the pigeon’s flight and half kills it through fright. The falcon avoids the solid body of a fully grown pigeon because the shock of hitting it, full on, and at that speed, would cause the falcon fatal damage. The weight of a female adult peregrine—for the females are usually larger—can be up to three pounds. Dropping to earth at stooping speed, carrying that weight, a glancing blow will be sufficient. It does not want to meet a solid object, like a pigeon’s body… or a man’s head. Also, a man’s head is six feet at most from the ground. Falcons look for prey in the air to give them recovery time to arrest their dive after they have taken their quarry.’