The two of them nodded reluctantly and the older one put her hands on her hips. “Best get to work then,” she said with a toss of her head.
“My name is James Enys, barrister-at-law,” he said, taking his hat off to them as if they had been ladies in fact, “My chamber is at the Earl of Essex’s new court.”
Both of them curtseyed to him. “Isabel,” said the younger one. “Eliza,” said the older one.
Isabel turned to Catlin and raked him up and down with her eyes. “Morning husband,” she said softly, “You coming with me?”
Catlin turned and almost ran in the opposite direction. He hadn’t wanted to to talk to her, he'd desperately hoped she wouldn't.... He was a fool, as always. Oh God... Might Enys guess?
Enys hurried after him also quite red. “Kettle Annie, God-fearing,” Catlin sneered, more to have something to say.
“God-fearing,” said Enys firmly, “Everyone says it of her. I’m going to the inquest now, if you want to come.”
The inquest was held in the crowded crypt of St Bride’s and it was short to the point of perfunctory, with a jury of solid well-dressed men clearly well-experienced in bringing in exactly the decision Fleetwood wanted. Catlin and Enys testified as to how they had found the body, the Fleet Street barber-surgeon testified that it had been mutilated, nobody wanted to view the body which lay between the old knight's tombs and the jury found they could come to no verdict except that of murder by person or persons unknown.
“I therefore adjourn this inquest pending further enquiries and the discovery of the the killer,” said Fleetwood who was also, usefully, the London registrar. Catlin found that he and Enys were at the end of a stern look by Fleetwood and his pet jury, which made him feel very nervous.
Mrs Nunn was in court, flanked by an attendance of hard-looking young men who included her younger brother Gabriel.
“May I claim the body to bury, sir?” she asked with a deep curtsey.
“Is there any kin of Mrs Annie Smith present in the court?” Fleetwood asked.
There was silence although some of the younger women and upright men clotting the steps at the back may well have been quite closely related to her, since successful whoredom tended, like so much else, to run in families. Or like the French pox, thought Catlin, that terrible vengeance on sin that made the children’s children’s mouths to set awry when their grandparents had eaten sour grapes.
“Any objections to Mrs Nunn being given possession of the body?” asked Fleetwood. There were no objections. “Very well, Mrs Nunn. I would appreciate due warning of the date of Mrs Smith’s interment.”
Julia Nunn curtseyed to him again. “Thank you, sir, it will be in two days’ time.”
Fleetwood nodded grimly, no doubt already mentally re-arranging the Watches of London.
It was interesting how Mrs Nunn had chosen to handle the matter of transporting Annie's bulky corpse in its blurring of cerecloth. Six men, two of them whom Catlin recognised as important upright men of the city, including Gabriel, brought in a litter draped in black. With some difficulty, Kettle Annie’s wide body was shifted to it from the bier and draped in black cloth.
While they did it, Enys had moved quickly to the back of the small crypt and slipped out the door and up the stairs. Catlin missed this and watched as Mrs Nunn using considerable ceremony, placed a large brass kettle with a dent in it at Kettle Annie’s feet – it looked positively pagan.
Realising Enys had already slipped away and feeling exposed amongst the scum crowding the little underground chamber, Catlin struggled through the press at the door and won his way up the crowded steps. Enys was watching from the other side of the street, where a crowd had mysteriously formed.
The place was even fuller of beggars and street traders than normal – the ballad sellers were already singing out the Sorrowful Tale of Kettle Annie’s Murther (only 3d per copy) – but there were others, whores and upright men and many urchins with swollen eyes, no doubt nips and foists amongst the respectable citizens who had turned out for mere curiosity.
As the litter came up the steps, a dirty boy fought his way to the front of the crowd, carrying a drum nearly as big as himself. Nobody was in a mourning cloak and yet this was looking very like a funeral procession. Gabriel Nunn whispered fiercely to the boy and the boy nodded, gulped, wiped his nose on his sleeve and started banging the drum hard.
Catlin recognised his informant, Peter the Hedgehog, which seemed appropriate. He at least had some colour in his cheeks and somebody had given him a cloak that was too big for him. With Gabriel holding his shoulder he found the two step beat and started forwards, muttering audibly, “One two, one two.”
Catlin was surprised to see how much dignity the boy had, as well as the tears carving tracks down the dirt and dried gravy on his face. Gabriel and his sister were behind him, then the litter with the body and its eponymous kettle, then upright men and Whitefriars whores in a loose throng. There was an eery quietness about it: no psalms, no music, not even the wailing of paid mourners. Just the sound of feet on cobbles. Most of them had some black about them but nobody was wearing a veil, just a shawl or hat or neckerchief wound round the wrist. There seemed a lot of them in their bright petticoats although most had pulled up their bodices to be decent.
Catlin saw that balding weasel of a poet hanging around near the Cock as well, watching with fascination.
The procession headed for Ludgate, clearly aiming for the City – highly provocative since no whores were supposed to set foot inside the walls. Catlin wondered if the City Fathers might dare try to stop them.
“Was she so important?” Catlin asked Enys, staring at Julia Nunn, magnificent in black damask and wheel farthingale, her painted face stony under her high beaver hat.
“Everyone liked her, I think,” Enys said judiciously, “But this is a message to Fleetwood and the City Aldermen from Mrs Nunn and her people.”
Catlin nodded. When you looked at who was in the procession, it was very clear. First came the various whores who worked out of the Whitefriars liberties and their upright men and the beggars that had taken refuge in the old Blackfriars cloisters until they fell down and the land was bought by a rich courtier who cleared them out. Some of the scabbier players who had visited her alehouse were there, but not the famous ones like the Burbages or Alleyn, because they were too respectable, in their own estimation at least. Then came the better dressed and perkier women of the Falcon from Upper Ground. Then the highly coloured pretty boys and the gentle gazelle-like black youths that some at Court favoured, from the Falcon’s Chick. Then another contingent wearing roses. In fact, looking at them, Catlin thought that every bawdy house and stews in Upper Ground and Bankside must have sent a party to follow Kettle Annie’s corpse.
Suddenly Enys nudged him and pointed. There at the back walked another silent group, some carrying brilliantly feathered fighting cocks in cages, and all the whores in their finest trademark fleur-de-lis stomachers above their striped petticoats.
“Paris Garden,” Catlin said, “Good God!” He hadn’t meant to swear but he was shocked. Paris Garden and Upper Ground were at daggers drawn usually. Often literally, since they were in such hot competition and had different landlords – the Bishop of Winchester for Upper Ground and the Lord Chamberlain for Paris Garden. Mary de Paris, or French Mary, had worked there in her youth as her name revealed. Behind them came well-ordered ranks of mostly older women, walking two by two, some wearing battered nun’s veils and radically altered black habits inherited from the original nuns who had dealt with the long-ago Dissolution of their notorious nunnery by turning it into a business.
“Clerkenwell Convent,” breathed Catlin, “Jesu, with one rank of arquebusiers here today we could clear London of all whoredom and venery.”
Enys snorted. “I doubt it, sir. To be sure the trade would only spring up again somewhere different since there is such demand for it amongst the Godly men of London.”
Catlin winced and scowled. What
did he know? Did he know? He was talking nonsense, of course. Without constant temptation, Catlin and other men like him who were naturally hot of temperament would be virtuous and godly.
Also amongst the silent walkers were the traders that lived off the custom the whores brought in – the pork pie sellers, the water sellers, the oystermongers, the whelkmen and the hazelnut women, all with their trademark trays and barrels, stout women mostly with boot faces – often the survivors of the trade from years before who had neither the faces nor the heart to sell their quims any more. After all, if you were not a Madam by the time you were thirty-five then you would simply not be able to find enough trade to live and that was that. Men preferred youth to experience, of course. And an old whore was inevitably poxed.
Catlin decided suddenly that he had better things to do with his time than watch the scum of the city, the congregation of the damned, parade to London Bridge and Upper Ground. He would go to his house and occupy himself reading a book of sermons. One reason was to pass the time. Another reason was to buttress his will against the stealthy encroachment of more sin, triggered by all the lewd young women who had marched so wantonly before him. Well, perhaps they hadn’t been obviously wanton, they had all been covered up respectably, but they still had their striped petticoats, they still had their dyed bronze or red hair tumbling under their expensive hats, they were still...
They were still women, creatures of darkness and desire, still Jezebels, Liliths, Eves. Still... still...
In his reading chair with a lit candelabra of wax candles to help the dull and cloudy daylight coming through his windows, Catlin sighed, shifted, tried to focus on the Godly paragraphs. He would have to get him a wife. Hadn’t St Paul recommended marriage rather than burning? For all the disadvantages of a wife, there were some advantages.
Or he could carry on sinning the sins of the flesh, since he was damned anyway. At that moment there came a knock at the door.
Shakespeare was walking along through the crowds that had stopped to stare at the procession brazenly marching through Cheapside, warned by the beating of Peter’s drum. The whores had passed to the north of St Paul's, along Paternoster Row and into the wealthiest street in London. The Cheapside goldsmiths had taken a gloomy view of the matter and their men and often they themselves were outside, busy boarding up their windows. Other shops along the Poultry were shutting early and the apprentices were out, hanging about on the street corners, watching with sticky eyes and sullen expressions, wondering if there’d be any excitement.
Through the swiftly clearing Lombard Street marched the procession, still silent, still with Peter the Hedgehog at their head banging his drum slightly off the beat, snot beading his upper lip, his face defiant. Shakespeare thought better of him for it and felt the ready tears prickle his eyes because of the power of it, the hard-faced anger in every one of these outcasts. Would there be a riot? Part of him hoped not, another part, steeped in original sin, hoped there would. It was exciting and fascinating and for those who could see... the shapes of what men do, it was like watching a great wild animal. Or perhaps it was like what happened when you led black ants and red ants into battle with each other by the judicious creation of sugar trails. He had spent an entire truanting day from school once, watching just such a war. The birching that followed the day after from the schoolmaster who had known exactly what he had been up to despite his elaborate explanations, had seemed a perfectly fair payment for the drama.
He still kept pace with them as they came down Gracechurch Street and New Fish Street to the Bridge and marched over it where the boy's drumming faded in the distance. Nobody had barred their passage, everyone had got out of their way, the Aldermen had been conspicuous by their absence. What had they done with their time, Shakespeare wondered cynically, since the stews and bawdy houses must have been shut?
He jogged back through the City, determined to catch a few hours in an alehouse somewhere and make a start on his poem. Perhaps he could re-use Pyramus and Thisbe? He couldn’t go back to his lodgings until nightfall because his landlady had made it clear that she didn’t want him disrupting the chickens with his dangerous writing habits. He had to find somewhere else to live and soon. Please God, let it be Southampton House. Somewhere with no chickens.
An hour later, he watched as Peter came back into the common room of the Cock, made his bow to the landlord and was given a tray and told to go around collecting pots. He had managed to make one cup of aqua vitae last a long time, which was an improvement, but he had wasted tuppence worth of paper on doggerel so bad, he thought he might as well keep it for the jig at the end of a play rather than burn it.
No matter how hard he tried, it wouldn’t come. The burning in his stomach, the clouds of ideas rushing together in his head to make rainbow coloured pictures and jewelled words flow out of his pen... Nothing. Oh God. Had he lost it? Had he drunk, gambled (sinned?) it away? Surely not. Maybe. He didn't know where the poetry came from in the first place, from the Greek Muse or Elfland, and he had no idea where to look when it stopped.
So he leaned back in his booth and stared at the fire, while watching young Peter scurrying around picking up pots and cups and running to the scullery with them. Once the landlord caught him by the ear and growled into it, “When you’ve picked ‘em up, boy, you go wash ‘em, see?” Peter looked shocked and surprised for a second, then wiped his arm across his nose with a determined look and rushed into the scullery. The landlord came by Shakespeare’s table.
“Well, at least ‘e’s willing and none of the buggers bother ‘im,” he said. “What about plague?”
“He’s already had it,” Shakespeare said with great confidence.
“Hmf. We’ll see.”
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, and before he had got properly into the aquavitae, he saw Enys coming into the commonroom and looking around purposefully before coming over and putting his hat down firmly on Shakespeare's table. Shakespeare quickly put away the appalling doggerel he had wasted his time on, in case Enys should read it.
"Mr Shakespeare," said Enys with a smile, "Would you like to bear me company today? I have to do some work on papers in a case and then I need to question the men on Peter's list and I had rather not do that alone."
"Where will you be working on your papers?" Shakespeare asked.
"Gray's Inn library, as I'm a member. I'm afraid it's a fairly dull place but the work will not take me very long..."
Shakespeare was already on his feet, his hat on his head. "Can you get me in there?"
With a little emollient silver for the Librarian, Shakespeare finally got into Gray's Inn Library, a place he had chafed after for years. It was disappointing to look at, being full of dusty books, scrolls and parchments in a storage system by size that only lawyers could make head or tale of. But still, it was a library, a treasury. While Enys consulted his lawbooks and precedents, Shakespeare wandered happily, screwing up his eyes to read the Latin and Norman French in cramped Secretary hands of the clerks recording cases between long-dead litigants, once full of sound and fury and now turned to mere scratchings on a page, and perhaps a couple of deeds in an archive or a chest somewhere.
There were large glass windows but no fires and candles were utterly forbidden, of course. Even pipe smoking was not allowed because of the risk of fire. This made the room chilly but quite bright and above all it cost nothing to sit there and no aqua vitae was available. So, after Enys had finished his legal work, and Shakespeare made copies of Peter the Hedgehog's list, they sallied forth to question the people on it.
After the first one, they retired trembling to a small alehouse for a quick beer to check for broken bones and to try and rescue Shakespeare's beaver hat, which the gentleman's servingmen had trampled. At least the mud had been fairly dry where he landed. Enys had a wrenched shoulder and a bruise on the cheek.
"We should have thought of that," Enys said, coming up for air and putting his half-empty leather jack down.
Shakespe
are had his wounded hat in front of him on the table and was brushing it gently and prodding the large dent in the crown. The hair he carefully combed over the sparse top of his head was coming down at the back of his head.
"There was no call for them to throw us out like that," Shakespeare said sulkily.
"Well, there was if you think about it," said Enys, irritatingly judicious. "We were accusing the gentleman of fornicating with a notorious whore and then possibly of killing her in a particularly loathsome way."
"The men wouldn't even let you show the warrant..."
"No, because that means they could say truthfully they hadn't seen it."
"But..."
"At least they didn't beat us up."
"What about my hat?"
"It'll recover. We'll have to come up with something more tactful."
And so was born the man who had been robbed of a particularly fine dagger near Whitefriars and thought he had seen whoever they were talking to thereabouts and was willing to give a reward if they had noticed anything amiss.
"It establishes an alibi," Enys explained to Shakespeare, "If they can say for sure where they were, then they will. If they can't, they'll say they might have seen something or that they didn't see anything."
It was elaborate and time-consuming, but it kept them out of armlocks and ditches.
By the time the sun set they had nearly finished the list of men who knew both French Mary and Kettle Annie and had got some very good alibis and a couple of unconvincing witness statements to a robbery that never happened.
They hadn't been able to find Maliverny Catlin who was the last name on the list, according to Peter the Hedgehog, even though he was supposed to be helping with the work. Enys was looking grave as they sat down to the ordinary at the Cock as usual, which they split between them. Shakespeare was filled with unseemly glee.
"It's obvious," he insisted, practically opening Enys's nose with his eating knife, "The bastard is a Puritan and a whoremonger. He gets the taste for blood and mutilation when he's working for Walsingham and Heneage and that foul creature Topcliffe. Whenever he thinks he can get away with it, he lures a whore he knows into a quiet hidden place and then he..."
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