Do We Not Bleed

by Patricia Finney

  A cook shoved past him to grind pepper into the salt beef.

  "Who's the feast for?" he asked the man, more out of something to say than real curiosity.

  The cook grunted. "Big party of Topcliffe's men coming in later to celebrate," he said, "He always wants the best."

  For a moment, Felix couldn't understand what the man was saying but then his brain caught hold of the most hated name in his life.

  "Who?"

  "Mr Topcliffe, her Majesty's priest hunter," said the red-faced man, blinking at him, "Why, ain't you wiv him?"

  "Ah... yes. No, not with him. I... have a message for him," said Felix with the first thing that came into his head.

  The cook grunted again, picked his nose and flicked his trophy into the stewing beef pot.

  "Well, you won't find him here yet, so what do yer want?" said the man insolently.

  "Of course not," said Felix brightly, "Thank you. If you see Mr Topcliffe, would you tell him that Felix Bellamy wants a word with him?"

  The cook shrugged. "Not likely to see him, am I? I hope. Give me the willies, he does."

  Felix felt his smile might crack his face, the way it was pasted over the top of boiling rage and terror mixed. His hands were shaking, so he crossed them and hid the wobbling fingers under his armpits. He walked on through the kitchen and into the yard where the chickens roamed. He went into the putrid jakes and sat there for a few minutes in the warm stench of manure, his brain tinkling thoughts over the gigantic cobbles of his fear.

  His breviary and cross were still in the alehouse where the people were still coming in. If there was no Mass being said there was no breach of the law and even Topcliffe would have to let them go, probably. There was no gate in the yard and the wall was high and spiked.

  He couldn't go back to Mrs Crosby either, that was clear. He had no contacts in London, nowhere to go and although he knew there were safe houses in the Liberties and St John's Wood, he didn't know their addresses. He turned his doublet inside out as he used to do when he was a naughty schoolboy truanting, then slid behind the jakes shed. A large stand of nettles there was dying back with the frost. He waded through them carefully, climbed the slippery wall and very carefully lifted himself over the spikes on top. He missed his footing and fell into the alleyway, but was only bruised and a little winded. After dusting himself down he put his doublet back the right side out, then turned his back on the crypt and all his congregation and walked quite slowly out of the alley.

  A very blackhaired old man was striding up the street, a silver shod walking stick in his hand and his henchmen behind him in a cluster. Felix lifted his hat to him and bowed slightly. He knew immediately that this was Topcliffe. It was a shock he was so old. How could he fight a duel then?

  Felix made way for him. His rage and hatred and fright turned the cold sunlight into knife blades, he saw every detail with a strange feverish clarity. This man had never met him, knew nothing of him, didn't recognise him. Felix drank in his appearance. This was the man who had ruined his sister's life, broken his parents and tortured his friend. Just for a moment, Felix's hand brushed his dagger hilt – a quick draw and stab when Topcliffe was unaware... came the thought. Felix shook his head. Honour would not allow it, even though the bastard had no honour himself. He could not do it. Not like that. In a fair fight, despite his calling, yes. But not like a footpad, not the way the Dutch prince William of Orange had been assassinated.

  Felix sauntered on into the street, took a cupful of water at the conduit on the corner as the last of the henchmen disappeared into the alehouse, and then headed into the crowds of London. He had no idea where he would sleep that night, but somehow his rage had alchemised into delight. He had seen his enemy and his enemy didn't know him. He had escaped by the skin of his teeth.

  Somewhere in the distant parts of his soul came an ironic thought: one minute preparing for Mass, the next considering murder? it said. Haven't you missed something about disputes with your brother and bringing an offering to the altar? How can you be a priest and say Mass with that black sin in your heart?

  Felix shrugged. All right, then, he wouldn't say Mass. Mrs Crosby had betrayed him as his sister had been betrayed. He had unfinished business and if he couldn't be a priest until he had finished it, then so be it. There would be one less priest cluttering up England.

  Topcliffe punched the cook in the face again, then rearranged his knuckledusters. The man's face was bloody and his nose a mashed blob.

  "I do'd do, how could I do?" he wailed, "'e wodded to talk to you tha' all..."

  Topcliffe took judicious aim and punched the cook's nose again. He felt another bit of bone crack and the man screamed. It was a little bit of satisfaction.

  "His name?"

  "He said Felix Bellaby wodded to..."

  Punch. Blood and snot flew everywhere but Topcliffe wore a dull black doublet for good reason and it didn't matter. The cook seemed to be crying.

  "I didden dow, how could I, dobody tol' be nod to tell..."

  No doubt that was true, Topcliffe thought, finally pleased by the weeping and bubbling.

  He left the cook and walked through to the commonroom where his men were standing around drinking his money. All of them moved away from him, out of punching distance. He liked it that they feared him, it made him feel safer. The Papists had scattered. They had been gathering simply for good fellowship, they said, nothing more. Mass? Whoever said anything about a Catholic Mass? Didn't His Honour know that it was illegal? There had been a pathetic haul of a few rosaries and a few forbidden Agnus Dei, but nothing more and especially no promised priest. And Felix Bellamy had somehow flipped his fingers in Topcliffe's face, figuratively speaking. That could not be allowed.

  He put his head round the door of the kitchen and the cook cowered away from him, trying to dab the ruin of his nose with an apron.

  "Take him to the barber," he ordered his men who were helping themselves busily to pie. "Get the bleeding stopped, then bring him with us. He can identify Bellamy for me."

  Shakespeare wished he wasn't where he was, but that damnable creature Enys had caught him again and swept him along to Mrs Betty Sharples' linen shop at the end of Fleet Street, as being the woman who had seen the Devil. The place was festooned, choked with napery of all kinds, some of the more old-fashioned shirts and aprons dating back to before the Armada when she had bought it off a woman who had been getting married late in life and quite suspicious haste. Her best-sellers were the handwoven linen sheets and pillowcases that came in by mysterious means and were often bought back by women who had carelessly failed to watch their own linen drying in their yard. All was clean and well-ironed with the cold wild smell of the cloth in the air, and the woman was clearly prosperous despite the evident fact that her head was fuller of feathers than any of her pillows.

  She was talking at incredible length. Shakespeare knew the type – male and female were prone to the malady. There were people in the world who were simply unable to get to any point quickly: if they wanted to tell you about a notable thing that happened in the evening, there was no help for it, they must start with what they had for breakfast that day. Any attempt to cut to the marrow of the matter quickly only made them worse. His eyes were glazing over and he had a terrible mad giggle under his ribs.

  "No, I tell a lie, it was a very good beef stew, and with carrots and a bag pudding of herbs to it and I said to my gossip, I said to Mary, well, I said, I'm sure I don't know but if she says there's a gentleman who wants to speak to you, why not go speak to him and find out what he wants, after all, you're not a virgin, Mary, I told her and she did laugh, it was just my little joke, and hazelnuts won't do you forever so why not?"

  He already knew that Betty Sharples had been born in the same village as French Mary de Paris and had travelled up to London with her to work for a fuller in Westminster who was a cousin, but alas, Mary had fallen for a rogue who left her ruined and the fuller's wife had turned her off, for all Betty could t
ry and say and she had gone to Paris Garden where she changed her name. He learned these interesting facts again.

  "The man she was to meet?" put in Enys, "Do you know his name?"

  Betty Sharples' round pleasant face drew together. Well, she said, it was a problem, she wished she did know it, wished she could tell them right off for he must be the Devil of Fleet Street and once they had his name the gentlemen could take him up and hang him and no decent woman was safe with the likes...

  "Did you ever meet him?" asked Enys, while Shakespeare rolled his eyes. Hadn't Enys worked it out yet? Betty Sharples' thoughts were a procession full of nervous horses and if you interrupted the procession or broke into it in any way, then the horses bolted and the litters upended and the whole had to be slowly reassembled from the start. From breakfast, in fact.

  "You what?" Enys asked sharply.

  "I did meet the Devil," said Betty Sharples with great emphasis, "I'm sure I did for I was all hot and bothered when the baiting ended and he was very kind and took me home, saying I was perhaps a little distempered and not to be concerned for he had had plague a few years ago and was well of it again but he didn't think that was what it was since I was only feverish and had no tokens and..."

  "Mrs Sharples, what did he look like? Did he look like a Devil?"

  The Sharples thought procession halted again, bumping into itself as it did.

  "I don't know you see, I can't remember, though I know I saw him and I knew he was the Devil because he was invisible." There was a distinct note of triumph in her voice, with its little crumbs of West Country under the sharpness of many years in London.

  Shakespeare looked at a very well-embroidered tablecloth and counted the flowers and birds on it so he wouldn't laugh.

  "Do you remember anything at all of the later afternoon?" asked Enys patiently.

  "Let me see now, I know that the beer I had for my breakfast that day was quite sour and the bread was stale for I told Mary about it..."

  Shakespeare turned aside and gently bit the knuckles of his left hand to stop himself screaming. This was the third time he had heard about the sour breakfast beer. Enys didn't seem to mind, curse him.

  Slowly and inevitably, the Sharples memory procession approached and got lost in the same swamp at about the same point, just when she and poor Mary her gossip had had a good laugh at the monkey on the goat's back and Mary had needed a napkin for her hands were that sticky and then they'd seen that new bear, Harry Hunkson – he wasn't fighting that day but they were parading him out with his new keeper and she almost thought it was Harry Hunkson who was the gentleman who had helped her home except it couldn't have been him obviously because he was a bear kept safely in a cage at the bearbaiting and wasn't it sad that poor Tom of Lincoln had run mad for sorrow when his keeper died of plague, there was a good ballad about it, and... It had been a gentleman anyway, of that she was quite sure, since he hadn't tried anything with her although she had been so hot and muzzy she had opened her stays down the front to let some steam out and after meeting the Devil she had woken up in her shop wrapped in a sheet and none the worse for it only poor poor Mary...

  At which point, for the fourth time, Mrs Sharples began to cry about how they'd tramped to London from their village back in the Sixties when the Queen herself was young and looking for a man and they were girls and it had been such fun and Mary was the best gossip she had ever had for all her trade...

  Shakespeare went out into the street, away from the smell of linen and the fat old woman's sobbing, hoping the air would mend his headache. Eventually Enys came out, frowning.

  "God, I thought she'd never stop," Shakespeare said to him as they walked back along Fleet Street to the Cock.

  "I'm glad she didn't," said Enys, "That was very interesting."

  "Eh?"

  "She went through it four times..."

  "I thought it was only three..."

  "In aggregate and each time she lost her thread at the exact same moment. After which somebody, probably a neighbour rather than a bear, guided her home. But not French Mary who was somehow lured to the new theatre and killed."

  Shakespeare nodded. "Do you think they were working together, the neighbour who was not a bear and the Devil himself?"

  Enys was fully scowling now. "I don't know. It's all too cloudy and vague and she's already told it too often."

  Shakespeare was more than ready for a quart of beer. "It's almost like an enchantment or a spell, a cobweb of dreams that fell over her," he said. Enys was too deep in thought to answer.

  Catlin had agreed to meet Enys the lawyer at the Cock and went straight there. He found the man sitting in the shadows of a booth at the back, aqua vitae in front of him and a large heavy looking legal book in his hands. He looked up as Catlin sat down in front of him, and tipped his hat with the very barest of civility. But Catlin didn't care. He had spent a very chilly hour waiting like a cat at a mousehole only to find from Topcliffe's rage that the mouse had scurried away long before. However it had given him time to think about his present problem.

  "Mr Enys," he said, "Is it possible to find out if a lawyer was really at court as he says?"

  Enys put the book down open in front of him and marked the place with a scrap of paper – it was in a combination of lawyer's English and Norman French, neither of which languages Catlin knew well enough to read upside down.

  "Certainly it is," he answered, "You ask the presiding judge or the clerk of the court and there is a written record kept as well."

  "Oh. So if a man says he was at Westminster all day, it should be easy enough to find out if he was?"

  "Yes, unless the hearing was in camera, of course. But even then a record would be kept. Why?"

  Catlin hesitated but in the end decided to pass on some of what he had learned at the Craddocks and while working through his list. After all, he had a reason for wanting Enys on his side.

  He told most of what he had done that day and Enys explained that he himself had been in court, but was victorious. "Did you not have problems with the gentlemen you were questioning?" Enys asked, with touching naivete, "Weren't they angry that you accused them of trafficking with whores?"

  Catlin smiled. "Not with my henchman Young Daniel standing behind me," he said. "Not one manservant wanted to try his luck with him."

  "That's Widow Creavy's enormous son, isn't it?" Enys said.

  "Yes. He has very little wit but is a most faithful hound," Catlin said complacently, "Goody Creavy hires him out by the day as a henchman and once she has told him to protect you, then I suspect you could outface the Watch, the Trained Bands and the Queen's Gentlemen of the Guard together."

  Enys smiled crookedly and chuckled a little, but didn't explain why. "So you think that Craddock's vision of the Devil was a sign that he's the man who killed the two whores?" Enys asked.

  "Yes, I do. What could it be but a guilty concience?"

  "It could be a mere overheated phantasy of his brain."

  Catlin sliced his hand across the air between them. "Yes, it could," he said, "but then it turns out that someone... something has been doing devilish things in London. There must be a connection."

  Enys nodded, staring into the cobwebs festooning a high corner of the commonroom. "Do you plan to arrest Mr Craddock?"

  "Not yet. Mr Fleetwood will want better evidence than a vision of the Devil to take up a respectable man like Craddock. He denies all knowledge of the crimes, of course."

  "Of course," murmured Enys.

  "And I believe we cannot simply take the man into the basement of the Tower and have him meet the Keeper's Daughter, as we could with a Papist."

  "Most certainly not, Mr Catlin. The statute of Edward III 1368 forbids torture without warrant and I don't think Mr Fleetwood will give you a warrant for the putting to the question of one of his brother lawyers." Catlin scowled. Enys smiled cynically. "Besides, I have never known good intelligence and information come out of a torture chamber and I'm sure you have no
t either."

  Catlin ignored the question. In fact he hadn't, but important people like Cecil and Topcliffe believed as the Spanish did that torture made truth more likely and who was he to argue.

  "A little rough treatment will do the trick," he said, "Sometimes. If at all. That and waking."

  Enys said nothing. From his face it looked as if he could have said a great deal more. A young round-faced man in a sober black wool doublet was sitting in the corner of the next booth, blinking into his beer as if it was his last and he hoped to find treasure in the depths. At Enys' silence, he looked up and stared hard, and then looked away quickly.

  "I'll go to Westminster tomorrow," Catlin said, preoccupied with Craddock. "I'd like to find out if Craddock really is as busy at court as he says he is."

  Enys nodded, glanced at his still open book.

  Catlin decided to take the bull by the horns, as it were, and find something out.

  "Mr Enys," he said formally, "I understand that you have a sister living with you to keep house for you, a respectable widow?"

  Enys's face had become wary. "Yes, I do, Mr Catlin." He closed his book and laid it on the table.

  "How old is she?"

  "About twenty-seven like me," said Enys, "We are of an age, being twins."

  "And what are her... her prospects?"

  For a moment Enys looked baffled. "Her prospects..?" Enlightenment dawned. "You mean her marital prospects?" Suddenly he reached for his cup of aqua vitae.

  "Yes. Have you... ah... any new husband in mind for her?"

  Enys seemed to have swallowed some brandy the wrong way, because he was in a paroxysm of coughing. "I'm afraid, Mr Catlin, she is not much of a catch. She has very little jointure and no settlement from her late husband. That's why she is keeping house for me."