Peter the Hedgehog wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Sorry sir,” he muttered dolefully, “I’m hungry, ain’t eaten today, I fort you wouldn’t mind seeing ‘e’s only a Jew.”
“Even if he’s a Jew, he’s got eyes in his head. Don’t steal while you’re with me, understand? It’s embarassing.”
Peter nodded. Shakespeare went back into the pawnshop, sighed and took off his last gold ring which he had only redeemed the week before with Southampton’s largesse. Blast Munday to hell and beyond, the smug bastard.
Gomes had seen that ring many times before. “Ay yes, the usual arrangement?”
Shakespeare nodded. He still felt pale with fury from the interview with Catlin, and wondered if he was, his heart was beating slow and hard as if he was about to get in a fight or go on stage in front of an audience of unhappy groundlings, well-armed with eggs.
He took the twenty shillings in silver and his ticket which required him to redeem the ring for 21 shillings, went outside into the street. Peter the Urchin was nowhere to be seen.
Shakespeare crossed his arms, scowled and waited for a minute or two. Then he shrugged and headed back down Fleet street, heading for the Cock.
Some prickle in his back warned him and he felt himself slightly jogged, then stealthy fingers at his codpiece where many people thought it was wise to keep their money. He caught the arm attached to the hand and lifted the scrawny creature up by it. There was hardly any weight there, you could hardly blame the boy for thieving.
“Listen to me, Peter,” he hissed, while the boy writhed in front of him and a couple of passers by grinned, “You don’t nip purses from people who are going to buy information from you. It’s stupid.”
“I saw that Mr Catlin go by, I had to hide,” snivelled Peter.
“You didn’t have to try and stick your thieving fingers in my crotch, you wittol,”
“I fort you wouldn’t want to talk to me cos of Mr Catlin.”
“You don’t know me, do you?” snarled Shakespeare, letting the boy down, “I’ll give you a chance this time, but don’t be stupid again, understand? I don’t mind a lot of things, but I will not tolerate stupid.”
He kept hold of the boy’s bony wrist and hauled him into the Cock and out the back into the yard.
“Listen,” said Shakespeare, “I’m going to ask the landlord of the Cock if he’ll give you a job here. That way you’ll be easy for me to find and not starving. Understand?”
The boy was still muttering something about Mr Catlin. Presumably the pursuivant had bullied him to give the Puritan anything he got first, the same as he had Shakespeare.
“One of the reasons why you’re here at all is because Mr Catlin doesn’t like the Cock. For some reason, no matter what he pays, he never gets good beer here. It’s a mystery. So you probably won’t see him here.”
:Peter nodded and wiped his nose on his sleeve again. His little red-rimmed eyes blinked hopefully – and squintily – at the poet. The fact of the matter was that there was no point him even trying to sell his arse, since nobody would be interested in buying it.
“You’ll be washing up pots and mugs and you’ll do as you’re told, you’ll get scraps to eat and any time you put a foot wrong he’ll cuff you, but you won’t be trying to sleep under the Bridge when the cold weather comes and you will have food. And I know he needs a scullery boy because his last one died of... of a fever.” It had been Plague, but there was no sense telling everyone. Particularly not Peter who had to sleep in the boy's bed. The landlord had kept it very quiet, but Shakespeare had seen the tokens on the boy when the small body went into the plague wagon some way from the Cock. Outside the Fox & Hounds, in fact. “So keep your mouth shut, do as I tell you and don’t you ever steal anything ever again or I’ll turn you in to the bailiff and I’ll nail your ear to the pillory myself. Understand?”
Shakespeare was nose to runny nose with Peter as he said that and the boy trembled at his flat Midlands hiss.
“Yers, but will ‘e want me?”
“Yes, he will, because you’re too ugly and ignorant to cause trouble with his customers,” said Shakespeare brutally. Peter stared at him with his mouth open, bewildered.
“Wot?”
Shakespeare sighed and shook his head.
“Quod erat demonstrandum,” he said.
“Wot’s just been shown,” said Peter absent-mindedly.
Shakespeare stared at him, quite shocked. “How the devil do you know what it means?”
Peter shrugged. “Me sister’n me used to serve a lawyer and he said that sometimes and told me what it meant. It’s foreign, innit?”
“Latin,”
“Yers. I fort ‘e was a Papist praying and I told vat Mr Catlin but ‘e said lawyers use Latin too.”
Shakespeare nodded. “Why don’t you serve him any more?”
Peter looked up and squinted at the sky. “Dunno, really. Somfink went wrong wiv my sister and the lawyer’s lady and we got told to go so we went.”
The landlord came out of the scullery and into the yard, looked narrow-eyed at the boy, nodded and went back to bring out a wooden platter piled up with food. It was the ordinary for the day of the Cock Tavern’s far-famed steak-and-kidney pudding, steamed as it was just above the double-ale wort. There was a chorus of pot-herbs with it and gravy. Peter was actually dribbling as he sat down on a bucket and started shovelling food into his mouth with his filthy hand.
“Slow down, or you’ll be sick and waste it,” Shakespeare advised drily. The boy ignored him but did stop a minute or two later, both cheeks bulging with suet pastry.
“Me sister used to say that,” he said through the food, “I fort it was just wot girls say.”
“Where is your sister now?”
“She’s dead, master,” said the boy with quiet sadness, “Two weeks gone.”
“Of plague?”
“No sir.”
“You’re sure.”
The boy nodded vigorously and his face was bleak. “She was killt, sir.”
“How?”
Peter shrugged and went back to shovelling food in his mouth. “Don’t wanna fink about it.”
“I’m sorry for it,” Shakespeare said after a heavy pause.
“Me too,” said Peter, with his mouth full again, “She used to work the gentlemen wot like kinchin morts and we’d eat regular as anyfing, every day sometimes. Maybe it was one of ‘em killt ‘er. I wish she hadn’t of got killed,” Peter confided, as Shakespeare stared at him narrow-eyed, “She was good, my sister, good as... as....”
“Gold?”
Peter shook his head. “Nah. Steak and kidney pudding,” he said with a gleam of humour in his eye, “You can eat that,” he explained, still munching.
“How was she killed?”
“I don’t wanna fink about it...” said Peter, with his head down, “It was horrible. What’d ‘e want to do that for?”
There was a feeling like the fingers of a ghost running up Shakespeare’s back. “Was she anatomised?” Peter’s face was blank. “Cut open.”
The dirty gravy-smeared face hardened at once. The boy nodded convulsively.
“Don’t wanna fink about it.”
“Where?”
The boy shrugged. “Dunno, don’t remember.” He’d finished the pot herbs and was running his finger up and down the plate and licking it. Then he stopped doing it the polite way and just licked the platter.
Shakespeare decided he’d better leave the subject or Peter might run away. “All right, can you tell me the list now? Of Kettle Annie’s clients and French Mary’s clients and customers as well.”
Peter burped. “Yers,” he said. To Shakespeare's complete astonishment, he fished out a crumpled bit of waste paper, squinted at the smeared charcoal on it and started to read names out. Shakespeare noted them down in his own notebook, completing the clerkish cycle. Who would have thought the boy could actually write? It was extraordinary.
Mrs Crosby went down the steps that led to t
he small crypt they had used before when they had been miraculously saved from a raid by Topcliffe and his men. It had been blocked off and sealed with the Queen's Customary Seal, which made it an ideal choice.
The little crypt backed onto an alehouse in the next street. She went back up the stairs and round the corner, to the alehouse called the Bull. The landlord met her in the commonroom and led her to the the space at the back where the big oven had been built against the garden wall. Down some steps again and through a small door and there she was in the dark crypt which somehow smelled faintly of blood.
She went back up the steps, picked up a candle and lit it with a spill from the coals in the oven.
Maybe it really was a church. Once it had been used to store barrels of wine that had no tunnage and poundage stamp. The sturdy round pillars and round arches looked like some of the older churches you saw, though there was hardly any Papist decoration. Just the odd blurred statue of the young bullfighter on one of the walls. She'd heard they did that in Spain instead of proper bear-baiting, perhaps this place had been built by Spaniards. Never mind, it was still perfect and it still had its amazing secret exit under the floorboards, the square pit with its drain where the priest had hidden the last time. It was a difficult place to escape from but you could do it by squeezing along the drain downhill and emerge on the other side of the street behind in a courtyard.
She shivered a little. The place gave her the creeps in the darkness, but you couldn't deny it made an excellent underground chapel. Father Campion himself had consecrated the place underneath where they put the table that made the altar, had hidden some sacred relics there and a splinter of the true cross. The landlord could still deny all knowledge and he was well-paid.
Mrs Crosby paid him again. She had her own interests to cover and she had made a decision after talking to the boy: after all, she had no husband now, no resources bar an inadequate jointure and her property. She had looked after many of the young idiots who came from the Continent after their priesting and she had gained nothing for it except danger and suspicion, expense and sorrow. She had to do for herself, since it was plain that God wasn't really interested in looking after Catholics. Once she had truly believed that He would protect His people, but no longer. Not since Fr Southwell had been taken. And so she spoke quietly to the landlord and rented the place for the next day.
Catlin had arranged to meet with James Enys at Ludgate. His plan was to go down to Blackfriars steps and take a boat to the Falcon on the South Bank, with a view to questioning Mrs Julia Nunn as to her knowledge of the whore-killer. Enys was vehemently against the idea when Catlin proposed it.
“Sir, if you cross-examine Mrs Nunn, you will only infuriate her,” he protested. "Besides, if she knew anything to the purpose, the killer would probably already be dead."
“So we arrest her for running a bawdy-house,” said Catlin.
Enys stepped back and stared at him. “And infuriate the Bishop of Winchester, the King of London and half the worshipful gentlemen of London?” he said, “Why? Why make our lives so difficult?”
Catlin began to consider that what you could do when you were hunting Papists on a charge of treason might be different from what you could do when merely seeking a whore-killer. “For her notorious whoredom,” he said, colouring.
“Obviously she is a notorious whore,” said Enys through his teeth, “She is also highly respected. What will Fleetwood say when he finds you have provoked the riot he has been at such pains to prevent?”
Catlin shrugged. “Why would they riot?”
“Because two of their company, two senior and respected women, have been very foully murdered,” said Enys, separating each word as if talking to a foreigner.
“Their arrogance knows no bounds,”
“Nonetheless, if they stir their upright men to it, the apprentice boys and watermen will start shouting “Clubs!” and the whole of London will be in chaos from dawn to dusk. Is that what you want? Or, more to the point, what the City Fathers want? Or Mr Fleetwood?”
Catlin looked down. Two highly painted women walked by, in striped petticoats, wide farthingales and bodices so low, their tits were almost exploding out of the top. They had fine tall beaver hats and were arm in arm as they smiled at the passers by. One of them smiled at him and hitched her hip, to his horror.
“Look at them,” he hissed quickly to Enys, “See their arrogance.”
“I see they’re walking in pairs now,” said Enys neutrally.
Catlin stared longingly at the women, then turned aside, burning with shame at the way his unruly sinful brain rioted beyond his control at the whores’ wantonness. They should cover themselves up and not walk abroad so he wouldn’t have to try and not sin with them in his mind.
Enys was watching him with an ironic look on his face. He seemed better able to control himself. But then he put his hand to his sword-pommel and hurried after the whores in plain daylight.
“Goodwives, may I speak with you?” he said.
The two women stopped, smiled and hoisted the sides of their petticoats to show a bare ankle each under their farthingales and white under-petticoats. Catlin swallowed hard as he followed the legs upwards in his imagination, into the very hell-mouth itself.
Enys bowed slightly, very courteous. “It concerns the terrible murders of Mrs Smith and Mrs Mary de Paris,” he said, according the whores far too much honour.
Both whores stopped smiling and one scowled.
“What of it? We don’t know nuffink.”
“The thing is, goodwives, I need your help. I have been ordered by Mr Recorder Fleetwood to find out the murderer so he may be brought to justice”
“Mr Recorder Fleetwood hisself?” asked the older of the two, with a jiggle of her hips. She must have been at least 21 and had a nasty sore on the side of her face, a certain sign of the French pox as Catlin knew well. “What does he care?”
“He doesn’t,” said Enys with a cynical smile, “But he doesn’t want trouble about either so I’m supposed to find out who did it or I’ll probably end on a rope doing a jig myself.”
The older one grunted, the younger one tutted.
“What about ‘im?” she said, gesturing at Catlin. “’e your friend?”
“No,” said Enys, “Although he is perforce my colleague.”
Catlin gave him a dirty look. “Where do you want to meet us, then?” asked the younger whore with a leer.
“I would like to meet with you and as many of your friends as possible...” The two were elbowing each other knowingly. “Ladies, I promise you, I have no intentions of venery.”
“Why not?” demanded the older one, “Ain’t we good enough for you?”
Enys seemed at a loss for words. “Ah...” he stuttered, clutching his swordhilt as if it offered a clue to dealing with this, “Ah... I’m afraid I could not afford such services even if I... um... did not have a malady preventing me.”
The girls elbowed each other again and sniggered. “S’alright,” said the younger one, “We can get it up for you, specially if you have both of us.”
It gave Catlin great satisfaction to see Enys had turned ruby red. The lawyer coughed and tried again.
“All I want is to hear what your thoughts are about the killings, who might have done it and perhaps even why.”
The whores looked at each other and then the older one nodded.
“I’ve been saying it was that lawyer what saw the Devil on Fleet Street yesterday,” she said. The younger one shivered.
“Stands to reason it was the Devil, considering,” she said.
Enys nodded. “But probably in human form. If you saw the Devil, you would run wouldn’t you, not go into an alley with him and take your clothes off?”
The younger one sniggered while the older one frowned in puzzlement. “Why would I take my clothes off?”
“Exactly,” said Enys. “There are other points like that for which I... I would be grateful for your expert advice.”
“’e talks nice, don’t ‘e?” said the younger one to the older one.
“I could see Kettle Annie clouting Old Nick with a kettle,” said Enys, “But not taking her kirtle off on a cold night.”
“Witches take their clothes off and lie with Old Nick,” said the older one, “And it’s a certain fact there’s witches in London. Everyone knows about it. Otherwise, why the plague? Eh?”
“Maybe the witches called up Old Nick and did what they do, you know,” said the younger one, “Lying wiv him and wapping him and then it all went wrong and ‘e cut ‘em up?”
Catlin was astonished at such good sense from the girl. Enys seemed impressed too. He nodded seriously. “That’s certainly possible,” he said, “And it would account for the lawyer seeing him.”
“Maybe it was lawyers wot done it all,” said the older one flintily, “You know, as warlocks or wizards. Eh?”
“All of this may be true,” said Enys, “Or none of it. At the moment all I want to do is find out as much as I can, as many true things as possible and for that I need you and your friends.”
“Besides,” said the older whore, continuing a thought and ignoring him, “Kettle Annie was a God-fearing woman, always going to church and that. She sang psalms as well as anybody I ever heard. So she couldn’t’ve been a witch cos they can’t go into churches, everyone knows that.”
She turned and smiled at him, which would have been more attractive if her teeth had not been brown. “So that settles it. Must have been the lawyers.”
Enys coughed again. “As this meeting is not to be for purposes of venery, I should like to meet at the Cock this evening...” That produced a gale of giggles from the youngest whore and a snortle from the older, while Enys went red again, “... with you and any of your friends you can persuade to come along.”
“Will you pay us for our time?”
“No,” said Enys flatly, although Catlin would have been willing to do it. “I told you, I have very little money. Besides, bought information is less trustworthy than what you tell me willingly so I can find out who killed Kettle Annie and French Mary.”
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