“So,” said Enys, “Do you think it’s another vicar, perhaps, revenging himself?”
The girls looked at each other. “We all fink it’s someone wot hates whores but that’s all.”
“Why would someone hate whores?”
Both girls shrugged. Isabel was peering around the common room again. “Caught a dose off of one of us, maybe? Got robbed one night? Or beaten up by an upright man? Or just some youngster giggled when ‘e couldn’t get ‘is tool to work.”
“Or perhaps he hates all women?”
What a ridiculous suggestion, Shakespeare thought. Why would a man hate women? They were fantastic wonderful creatures and you could never ever get enough of them.
Surprisingly the girls considered this. “Maybe,” Kat said doubtfully.
“But there’s plenty of women easier to do than a whore,” said Isabel, “I mean, look at all the women in the Fleet wot undercut us? And some of the wives of London, they go off wiv any fancy man they meet at the theatre.”
“Well but they don’t walk abroad at night.”
Kat and Isabel considered this. “Kettle Annie and French Mary didn’t go out at night much, either, they was retired. Kettle Annie had her player’s alehouse, even if she didn’t make much money and French Mary had to sell hazelnuts cos she couldn’t get many customers once she was fat.”
“Do any of you have any notion of someone who hated them enough to kill them?” Enys asked.
“We’ve all been finking about it,” said Kat, “All of us, we’ve been flogging our brains to come up wiv someone. There must be someone.”
“Not even Bill Smith, that was Kettle Annie’s upright man?”
Both of them giggled. “Nah,” said Kat, “’e loved Annie, it was ‘er didn’t want nuffink to do wiv him after 'e drank 'er savings.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dunno. I ‘erd he got the plague a month ago, so maybe he’s still shut up in ve Bridewell. Poor Annie was ever so upset about it, even though she’d told ‘im to go and jump in the Thames before.”
Peter came past, industriously gathering pots.
“So nobody else has been killed and anatomised like that?” Enys said again, “Not even a while ago?”
Both girls shrugged and shook their ringlets. “No,” said Kat, “We’d’ve heard.”
Shakespeare noticed that Pater paused with his arms full of dirty tankards and jacks, mouth open as if about to say something.
“We’ll tell you if we fink of someone,” confided Kat to Enys, “And it could be the Devil. A goodwife saw Old Nick near Temple Church too.”
Enys’s eyes half-closed while Peter ducked his head, sniffled and scurried off to the scullery.
“Who saw it?” asked Enys, making notes.
“Betty Sharples,” said Kat, “She saw him, plain as plain, next to the Temple Church, tall as the church wiv cloven hooves and all clouds of brimstone around him too and the heat of hellfire coming from ‘im. The fright nearly killed her.”
“Oh,” said Enys but Shakespeare was interested. Didn’t Enys know that Betty Sharples, who had a linen shop at the end of Fleet Street, was Kettle Annie’s cousin and they always went to the bear-baiting together.
“Course,” Kat allowed, “She could’ve been delirious cos she come down wiv a flux the day after.”
"What day was that?" Enys asked conscientiously, scribbling away.
"Ah... the same day you found Kettle Annie's body, probly."
Enys made another entry in his notebook. Suddenly Isabel stood up. “I wish Eliza would come,” she said, “She’s never normally this late.”
Enys frowned. “Did she say she had a customer?”
“She said she had to meet someone...” Isabel trailed off and stared at him, stricken. Then she put her hands to her mouth and started to wail. “Oh no, you don’t fink... Oh no, not Eliza...”
Seizing the opportunity, Shakespeare put his book away and came hurrying over with the remains of his aqua vitae.
“Good wives,” he said, tipping his cap to them, “Mr Enys, I think we should move fast...”
Enys was ahead of him, already on his feet. “Yes, let’s try and catch this creature.”
The whores clutched each other at the idea.
“We want him red-handed,” insisted Shakespeare, “otherwise he’ll only deny any bad intent. It’s no good finding his handiwork when he’s finished. Where would Eliza go – was she meeting a customer? Did she have a regular place?” He glanced at the windows. It was dusk already, helped by a cold grey sky.
Kat and Isabel looked at each other. “Not really, she’d go round the back of the Temple or places like that. There’s a little nook there, quite private and a bit of a shelf as well to hitch your bum on.”
Shakespeare crooked his finger at Peter. “Bring us a good dark lantern,” he ordered, “Not a torch.”
The boy stood with his mouth open for a second and then ran for the back of the common room.
Moments later, he was back, with a jerkin hitched over his skinny shoulders and candle already lit inside the lantern. Shakespeare pulled the shutter across.
“Listen,” he said to all of them, “Be guided by me. This is in the nature of a hunt by stalking, not par force de chiens nor by ambush.”
“And she might be all right and just seeing to a business husband,” Isabel pointed out. “Nobody’s going to turn down money in these times.”
“Precisely,” said Shakespeare, “So we should creep up on them quietly and if this is merely trade, leave them alone. God forbid I should play the damned puritan like Catlin to meddle in someone’s livelihood.” Isabel snickered knowingly at that.
The whores supported at each other as they hurried out of the Cock, the girls going first, arm in arm for safety, despite being from rival factions, then Peter with his lantern and then Enys and Shakespeare.
They took a short cut down the cloisters and wound their way through the narrow alleys that had grown up in the wreckage of the Whitefriars abbey. There was no sign of anyone in the nook, but there was a sound of quiet voices next to the church itself, both women and one of them very drunk.
“I’m hotter’n hell... it’sh all shwimming...”
“Then sit yourself down, my dear,” said another woman’s voice, “Rest.”
“Hot.”
“Well undo your collar, cool yourself.”
“Gi’s a drink.”
“I think you’ve had enough...”
“That’s her!” hissed Isabel, “That's bloody Eliza, she’s just gone and drunk her takings again. I’ll bloody kill her...”
They came around the corner in sight of the round church and there sat the two women in the porch. One stood up in fright at the sight of them.
“Jesu, who are you?” asked the other woman’s voice sharply.
Isabel rushed forwards to hug Eliza who was swaying on the bench, hiccupping to herself. “Oh fank God for it, I fort the Devil had got you for sure...”
The other woman’s teeth flashed as she smiled. “Ah, you’re friends of hers. Good. I found her wandering about here quite distempered and in drink and was afraid the Fleet Street Devil might find her in that state.”
Shakespeare suddenly knew who this was – the new orangeado seller who had taken over from Betty. Though there was something odd about the way she spoke.
“Goody Mallow?” he asked.
The woman curtseyed to him. “I’m so pleased her friends are here. I’ll go to my house now.”
Peter the Hedgehog was blinking and staring at Good Mallow with a scowl on his face as if she were his enemy. He wiped his nose anxiously on his palm, then wiped it on his jerkin.
“Thank you, thank you, Goody,” said Isabel, catching the woman’s arm, “I’ll always buy orangeadoes now, I’m sure you saved her from the Devil cutting her up.”
The woman smiled. “I’m sure...”
“I sheen ‘im...” slurred Eliza, “I sheen him, wiv hairy legs and eating pork pies
too. I sheen him.”
She burped and nearly fell off the bench, caught at Isabel and Kat.
“She’s hot as fire,” said Kat doubtfully, “Feel her forehead. Do you think she’s got plague?”
Goody Mallow shook her head. “No, I think it’s only the drink she’s had. Look after her well, gentles.”
She turned and walked sedately up the alleyway, her pattens protecting her figured leather boots from the mud under her woollen kirtle.
Shakespeare had a sudden awful thought and ran after her. “Goody!” he called, “Wait! Aren’t you afraid of meeting the Fleet Street Devil yourself?”
Goody Mallow paused, then turned.
“No goodman, I am not,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because the Devil comes only for his own,” she answered.
“And have you too seen this Devil?” Enys asked, coming up more slowly.
“No sir,” said Goody Mallow, “Though I am sure he goes about guised as a man.”
“What if he is in fact only a man?”
Goody Mallow shrugged.
“And forgive me, Goody,” added Enys, “How will he know that you are not a whore?”
Goody Mallow drew herself up haughtily. “I wear no striped petticoat,” she said, “I am safe.”
“Perhaps he only looks for women who are out late?”
Goody Mallow lifted her shoulder again and smiled wryly. “Then I shall be protected by my face which has never been my fortune,” she said which was undeniably true as she was square-jawed and boot-faced, “And I am too old for him.”
She curtseyed again and carried on up the alley, then turned right onto Fleet Street and speeded up, walking so fast she was waddling a little. Perhaps she wasn’t as certain about the Devil as she pretended.
Shakespeare and Enys went back to Kat, Isabel and Eliza where Eliza had opened her bodice, unhooked her stomacher and flapped herself with it. Her elbow knocked over a small flagon beside her on the bench and it made an oily mark on the wood.
Isabel scooped it up and sniffed suspiciously. “What's this? Hm, it smells like nit-killer,” she said, thriftily stoppered it and put it in her petticoat pocket, then lifted Eliza onto her feet. Eliza was singing something very lewd.
“We’ll get her home,” said Isabel resigned, “Thanks gentles for your help. We didn’t catch ‘im but at least she’s all right.”
“We’ll come with you a little,” said Enys gallantly, “Just to be sure there’s no devil running about.”
Down the many alleys and back into Alsatia they went, to the little room that had been used by a whore for as long as Shakespeare had been in London – unmistakeable for there was a bit of salvaged stained glass window doing its duty in a very different place, a fine head of the crucified Christ. The door banged as Isabel and Kat half-carried half-dragged the singing Eliza into the room.
Enys glanced at the picture and smiled a secret smile.
“Come this way,” he... she said to Shakespeare, then slipped down another steep alley that went to Temple steps then sideways and down again. She hoisted herself up on a stone and pointed at the top of the wall that had plants growing out of it. Most of them were in their withered winter state, brown and sad, although there was some aromatic evergreen there from the smell. Enys looked around furtively in the moonlight and pulled off a couple of twigs, sniffed hard. There was a small gap, filled with trampled greenery, and then another wall, a yard thick, another remnant of the monastery. On the other side of the second old wall, a door slammed in the darkness.
“Rosemary and thyme,” said Shakespeare, “Sovereign against the plague,”
“Good against fleas too,” said Enys, split them and gave some to him. Then she frowned at the other plants. “I thought this might be someone’s little garden,” she said, “But there are weeds here as well.”
Shakespeare nodded, not much interested although Enys seemed pleased. “I got soapwort from here a week ago, very useful.” She slid her posy inside her doublet front.
Shakespeare smiled back and thought to his own surprise about kissing her, because in the dusklight her scarring didn’t show and opening her doublet casually like that, as if she were a man, had given him the scent of her undeniably being a woman, that sweet spiciness. Her arse was well-shaped and nicely close to his face as she tiptoed on the stone, her tits under her shirt flattened but there for the observant, her legs... Long legs were good too, she was as tall as he was which some men might find offensive. Not him though. And there they were, those secret female legs in canions and hose, not yards of brocade and linen, nonchalantly standing on a stone right next to him and...
Shakespeare shut his eyes, frowned and breathed deep. No. Under no circumstances. Never again. There was about women a strange magic which sucked your Muse away from you... then gave it back, admittedly, strangely shaped, as he had found with Mistress Emilia and his rapidly growing collection of sonnets. But he had no time for such complications, he needed to write a poem for the Earl of Southampton.
“Come on,” said Enys, with an impish smile, only a little twisted by the pockmark next to her mouth, “Let’s go down and look at the Thames from Temple Steps.”
She jumped down like a boy and did up her doublet again, then strode ahead of him. Shakespeare’s body was paying no attention at all to his practical and virtuous thoughts and he had to limp awkwardly for a moment before he could follow her. God damn it.
At dawn next morning, Maliverny Catlin found Shakespeare and Enys peacefully eating breakfast at the Cock as usual. He scowled at them, disliking the idea that James Enys was getting on so well with the player.
“Have you not heard yet?” he sneered, “There’s been another one found.”
Both of them stared blankly at him for a moment, then Enys jumped up, quite pale.
“What...?”
“But we...” stuttered Shakespeare.
“Where and who was it?” Enys asked.
“Hard by Blackfriars,” sniffed Catlin, “Mr Recorder Fleetwood sent me out to find you.”
Both gulped their mild ale and followed him out.
The woman’s body lay crumpled awkwardly on its side in the pungent lee of a respectable merchant’s jakes, close to the remains of the London City wall. The house itself had clearly been built with stones from the old Blackfriars priory and the Wall itself and was a handsome building with shining diamond panes of glass. Henry Bailey, the merchant householder, was at that moment being questioned very carefully by Fleetwood.
Enys went into the yard and touched the body – it was an old woman, one of the beggars who eked out a living selling stolen linen and scavenged firewood, a bony old woman with a pinched face. She was fully-clothed this time, her white hair matted with dirt and heaving with lice and fleas abandoning ship as if she were a hedgehog.
A ragged gash opened her belly and the guts were spilled all over the cobbles. From the house came the sound of hysterics as the merchant’s wife reacted to the problem.
“Hm,” said Enys, stroking his chin, “Odd.”
Shakespeare pulled his eyes away from the broken old woman. He’d never get down to his poem today, he would have to spend it drowning this picture.
“Why?” he croaked.
Enys’ expression was cold. “Her face isn’t as peaceful as the others and this isn’t at all tidy.”
Shakespeare could think of nothing to say to that because although it was true, that thought too made him feel sick.
“So the Devil was abroad again last night,” he said in a low voice, “Only..." He stopped. They had talked about the killing of "another one" and here she was. It made his blood run cold. Had the killer been listening? Or the Devil?
Enys said nothing but shook his head, headed for the house. Fleetwood was questioning the merchant in his own parlour with its cup-board laden with shining plate and the walls lined with costly Flemish tapestries of the Queen of Sheba. Bailey was a pouchy-faced man whose plump and pregnant w
ife wept into her satin apron behind him.
“You didn’t know the woman?”
“No sir,” said Mr Bailey, drawing himself up.
Enys cocked her head slightly. Shakespeare had seen it too – Mrs Bailey had twitched her swollen eyes and looked down.
“She never served you nor you never bought firewood nor linen from her?” Fleetwood’s voice was polite but sceptical.
“Of course not,” snorted Mr Bailey, “I would not allow some filthy old beggarwoman anywhere near my property.”
“With all due respect, sir,” said Fleetwood in the lawyer’s tone which meant that respect was neither due nor offered, “How then did she come to die in your yard?”
Bailey puffed up his chest. “I have no idea, sir. Perhaps she climbed over where the Wall is tumbled down – I have been intending to have it rebuilt.”
“Then she must have been killed in your yard. Did you hear...?”
“We heard nothing last night,” insisted the merchant. “Nor any other time. I have never seen her and nor has my wife. Will this take much more time, I am expected at the Exchange?”
Fleetwood’s craggy face drew down in a scowl but the merchant was wearing a doublet of magnificent murrey-trimmed black silk Lucca velvet and could clearly afford to be rude.
“Hm,” said Enys again, quietly, his eyes narrowing as Fleetwood bowed, Bailey bowed back, Mrs Bailey curtseyed shakily and Fleetwood turned to take his leave.
Beckoned by Fleetwood, they followed him to his house on the other side of the City, leaving Catlin to organise the removal of the old woman's body. For the whole walk of about half an hour, Fleetwood said nothing. Once at Seething Lane, Fleetwood sat down at once at his desk and began writing a report. He was writing it directly in a numerical cipher which Shakespeare thought was impressive and also interesting. Who was the report for? He squinted at it in case he could read it, but he couldn't.
“I’ll call Bailey for the inquest,” said Fleetwood to them, dipping his pen, “At least it wasn’t another whore though I’ve no idea how I’ll find out who she was. Did either of you know her?”
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