"Thank you, Peter,"
"I ain't got a knife, but I got teef," he told her seriously so she wouldn't be frightened.
"I do have a knife," said Mrs Morgan firmly, "So if someone needs sticking with one, you can borrow it."
Peter nodded. That was sensible. They came to the wall.
"Oh!" said Mrs Morgan, "I know this place!" She gathered her skirts, climbed up on a stone and peered over. "The garden's gone too, somebody's dug it all up."
"Is... is... Mary there?"
Mrs Morgan leaned to peer over carefully into the space between the two walls. "No, there's no body there and there hasn't been for at least a week because I'd have noticed. I was... my brother was here too with Shakespeare."
"It's gone!"
"Yes, Peter, I didn't think it would be here, really. People don't leave bodies lying around if they can help it."
"You fink he put her in the Thames?"
"Yes, or even gave her a proper funeral and put her in a grave – or most likely tipped her into a plague pit so she at least got blessed. There's a lot of plague around London now, it wouldn't be hard to get rid of the body. What's in that shed?"
It wasn't really a shed, it was a bit of monastery that had survived, so it had stout stone walls and a chimney but the slates had been stolen so it had a thatched roof now.
"That's Goody Mallow's shed, the orangeado seller."
"It is? What did she say about the body?"
"Dunno, she's not often there. It's all locked up tight cos she don't want nobody getting at her orangeados nor sugar wot's so expensive like you said,"
"Peter, I know we can't bury Mary, but could you get up on the wall next to me and tell me exactly what you saw?"
He didn't know why she wanted him to tell her, it was horrible, but maybe if he told someone it would stop getting into his dreams. He scrambled up and knelt on the double skinned wall and looked down into the little space behind the orangeado seller's yard wall where Mary had lain, all higgledy piggledy. He'd only found the place because of the crows and buzzards and dogs anyway.
"Did you see blood there?"
"There was some, smeared onna walls, but it's rained since then."
"How was Mary lying?"
He gulped. "On 'er back," The pictures marched in front of his eyes. His stomach was full of the cold terror that had filled him like that cold feeling you got before you actually came down with the fever. He started to shake with the cold. "Her face was all right but 'er guts..."
"Cut open?"
"Yerss, like I said, and all the innards in a spiral and a sort of bit of meat onna ground next to her and cut open, looked like ox heart."
There was the sound of Mrs Morgan taking a deep breath through her nose.
"Anything else that you thought was strange?"
"Nah," Peter shook his head, screwing up his eyes. "Only..." There had been something else but he couldn't remember what it was. "I don't fink so." The coldness overwhelmed him and he jumped down quick before Mary's ghost could get him.
Mrs Morgan hopped down too and he put her hand in hers again, so she'd know she was safe with him even in Alsatia. "Do you fink she'll stop getting angry at me?" he asked, "In my dreams?"
"Yes," said Mrs Morgan firmly, "She's certainly buried now. We'll go back to the Cock and you can go to work – I promised the landlord I'd bring you back."
They came out on Fleet Street but instead of going to the Cock right away, Mrs Morgan walked along it. "Tell me when we come to the house where you and Mary worked?" she said quietly.
They passed it not far from Temple Bar. "This one," he said, trying to keep Mrs Morgan's skirts between him and the windows in case the mistress was looking out. "Wiv the bearded lady over the door."
Mrs Morgan's eyes behind her mask narrowed. He could hear her suck in her breath again.
"Thank you, Peter," she said, the ice crackling in her voice. They crossed the street as a string of packponies came along, laden with cheeses from the smell. Peter's mouth watered and he wondered about nipping some cheese but they were in big round trucks and well- stowed. On the way back to the Cock, though, she stopped in front of one of the pie sellers and talked to him a bit and bought two whole pies that were full of gravy and he got a whole one all for himself again. He wolfed it down in about two bites, while Mrs Morgan took the other one in its waxed paper and put it in her basket for later. Amazing that. How could she do it? What if somebody stole it?
"Wot?" he said. She'd been talking again while he concentrated on the pie.
"I'll tell my brother James Enys the lawyer about you," Mrs Morgan told him again, "He's helping Mr Recorder Fleetwood find out who's doing these terrible things so he might want to talk to you about your sister too. Now do you know where Goody Harbridge used to live? I heard it was near the Cockpit?"
He did and while he was telling her, he remembered the thing that was strange about Mary.
"She had her little cross on," he said, "She still had it, see, cos she wore it for luck. It was off of a long string of beads that Mother pawned one by one when we were in the gaol and then she couldn't pawn nor sell the cross because it had a little Jesus on it and that's dangerous because it was idolatry but she couldn't melt the little Jesus down, cos it was carved so Mary got it. She said it was good luck but it didn't stop her being killed, did it?"
"No, Peter." It looked as if Mrs Morgan was going to say something else but then she didn't. "That's very interesting. So whoever killed her wasn't interested in robbing her, as far as we can tell. I'm afraid that cross has probably gone for good now."
Peter shrugged. "Don't matter, it wasn't gold or anyfing and you couldn't sell it cos it was dangerous." He wasn't being quite truthful because he wanted it back as a remembrance of Mary, except he wasn't sure if he did want it after all because remembering Mary made him feel so sad. He had been too upset and overwhelmed to take it that time he found her but he wished and wished he'd done it now.
They were at the alley that led to the Cock's courtyard and he knuckled his forehead to Mrs Morgan and trotted down to start work.
Portia Morgan found the Worthing's house – it was small and ramshackle and right next to the Cockpit so it must be a deafening place to live when there was a fight on.
The woman who opened the door had a permanent worried expression and a swaddled baby of about four months roaring lustily in her ear.
"Is Goody Harbridge here?" Portia shouted, "I asked her to knit me some gloves and I've heard nothing from her, which I've paid for by the way, mistress."
The woman's face fell. "Goody Harbridge is dead," she yelled back, "Died a couple of days ago after she went out to collect firewood. Very sad it was, mistress."
Portia stepped closer. "I'm sorry," she shouted, "What did you say?"
The baby's face was puce and the noise coming from his square mouth was amazing.
"I said..." shrieked the woman, "Oh, come in, missus, I'll tell you when I've got him quiet."
Or at least Portia thought that was what the woman was saying, she had to read the lips.
The front room had a wooden cot hanging on ropes from the ceiling beams, a toddler with padding strapped on his head staggering about purposefully in his little shirt, clutching firewood, a little girl of about five busy carding wool from a fleece by the fire and two boys aged about seven or eight, punching and kicking each other as they wrestled in a corner.
Portia took her mask off once she was through the door, picked her way across the reasonably clean rushes and sat herself on the chest under a window while the woman perched on the nursing stool by the fire and popped a tit over the top of her stays to plug the baby in. The baby latched on like a starving wolf and started glugging. The relative quiet was delightful. Once again Portia's own breasts prickled at the sight. She smiled.
"Poor lamb," she said, "He was only hungry."
Goody Worthing nodded, her face looked tired.
"He's certainly a fine strong boy," Portia add
ed politely, "Is he..."
"I'm nursing him for Missus Bailey," explained the woman, "but I've never known such a lusty babe."
One boy was now sitting on the other, battering him.
"Michael!" shouted Goody Worthing, noticing at last, "Will you for God's sake go and feed the goat like I told you an hour ago?"
The boy on top got up reluctantly, picked up a leather bucketful of scraps and trotted out the back door into the yard, followed a moment later by his brother who seemed to have found a football.
"Poor Goody Harbridge," sighed Goody Worthing, "She was a lovely old soul and ever so helpful when my youngest was born and with Ted as well." She tilted her head at the toddler who was carefully piling firewood up to build a house. Suddenly his face became faraway and intent. Portia tensed, she knew the signs.
"Alice," shouted her mother, "Take Ted outside to the jakes, quick!"
The little girl dropped her carders, leaped for the toddler and hauled him bodily out the back door where he squatted and laid a remarkable pile of turds while his sister held up his shirt and made understandable faces.
"It's awful when you're just training them," said Goody Worthing to Portia, "Do you have any of your own, missus?"
As always, the knife permanently lodged in her heart twisted and she was shocked by it. This was one of the reasons why she had originally welcomed the idea of playing at being a man – men never asked each other questions like that. She had to pause before she could answer.
"I did once," she said quietly.
The woman looked at her pocky face and her eyes were full of sympathy. "I'm sorry, missus," she said softly, "It's cruel hard for us all. I lost my baby last summer with a fever, that's why I could take this one on."
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
"Goody Harbridge said it was God's will, she did her best for the little girl but it was just too little, you know? I don't see what God wants with babbies or children for that matter, but what do I know, I'm not a reverend?"
Portia said nothing since she had nothing to say that wasn't heresy and probably treason too.
Goody Worthing coughed and shrugged. "So... she was knitting you gloves. You can look at her things – they're in the chest you're sitting on, in case her family should come. But I don't think she had a family, poor old soul, she never spoke of anyone."
Portia knelt down by the chest and opened it. Inside were neat hanks of wool, some undyed and still greasy with sheep yolk and dirty with bits of leaf – she must have been gleaning the hedges near London for her wool. Her steel needles were rusting despite being wrapped in some sheep's hide. Underneath was a small cloth bag with herbs and lichen in separate pockets.
"I heard from Mr Cheke the apothecary that Goody Harbridge was upset in the last few weeks."
"It was the witch that murdered her, " said Good Worthing angrily, popping the baby off her teat and sitting him up to wind him. Portia sat back on her heels and watched her carefully.
"How do you know?"
"I don't know exactly, but she came home in a dreadful taking one evening, said she'd found a witch's garden in a secret place full of plants that shouldn't be growing there."
"What plants?"
"She said it was full of mandrake, nightshade and henbane..."
"Henbane? That won't grow on London clay," Henbane famously was what witches used on their broomsticks – or rather the poisonous seeds of it ground up and made into an ointment. Portia felt herself freeze in place, kneeling next to the old midwife's chest. Her spine had turned to ice, her knees to jelly. She suddenly knew where the garden had been and what Peter Cheke had been talking about – henbane, not chickens, mumbled by an old woman. Honestly! She should have spotted it.
"No, it won't. That's what Goody Harbridge said too. She said to get it to grow you had to bring in sand because it liked a sandy soil and that's how she knew it wasn't just weeds."
Portia nodded.
"When she found it, there were still flowers. Later she said someone had harvested the seeds and she said then that the Devil would be abroad in London because of the witch for only a witch would have such a garden."
"The Devil?"
"Oh yes, henbane ointment mixes up the humours, she said, and so you see things."
"Goodness," said Portia because this was new to her, "But why the Devil?"
"Ah, that's because you get hot if you have too much," said Goody Worthing "You feel the heat terribly. Goody Harebridge said she knew about it because she used to use it as an ointment for mothers that were having trouble with a birth – she'd put a very little of the ointment on their privy parts and that would quiet them and relax them so she could get a hand in and shift the baby if it was breech – she was a very good midwife, you know, only the College of Physicians took her to court and prosecuted her for they said that she was ignorant and a witch herself. And her at church every Sunday."
Portia's heart was thudding. "I've never had henbane ointment," she said, thinking she could have done with it for her first.
"Yes and you spill everything in your heart, tell all your secrets. Goody gave me some when my little Laura came early, she was trying to stop my waters breaking so early and it was a cruel hard birth. I was telling Goody Harbridge all about when I was a girl – not that I remember what I said, you never do. It's a wise woman's secret – Goody only told me about it because of finding the plant, you know. She said all that knowledge was dying anyway as the Physicians drive out the midwives for their fees."
"Did she say where the garden was?"
Goody Worthing shrugged. The baby spat out her nipple and turned to stare boldly at Portia, then gave a one-toothy grin. She couldn't help smiling back despite what her insides were doing.
She looked in the chest again and in the purse. There were a few pennies there..
"Goody Worthing," she said, "Did Goody Harbridge tell you who the witch was?"
"She was going to. She came back the day before yesterday and she said she knew who it was and she was a wicked wicked woman. So she said she was going to accuse her."
"Ah,"
"And whoever it was, killed her," said Goody Worthing bitterly, laying a cloth on her lap and starting to unwind the swaddling bands parcelling up the baby. "That was the last I saw of her."
"Who did she tell?"
"She was worried she wouldn't get to talk to anyone, even Mr Recorder Fleetwood would tell her not to trouble herself with imaginings. She told a merchant's wife she knew but she said nobody believed her. Missus, would you pass me that changing basket..?"
Portia reached over and handed it to her as the ripe smell of a well-fed baby's bowels filled the room and Goody Worthing wiped and cleaned and changed the baby. He waved his arms and legs around and grinned happily up at Goody Worthing who smiled back. His little willy stood up and he peed, but she caught it with a cloth and laughed at him.
"Ah you won't catch me that way again, little John, no, you won't."
Portia climbed to her feet, feeling sick and shaky. She needed to get out of the place with its healthy babies and living children. Through the back window she could see the toddler, the little girl and the two older boys playing a complicated game with the tethered goat.
"Thank you, Goodwife," she managed to say, "I'm very sorry to hear about Goody Harbridge. Please don't worry about my gloves. If you find the money I gave her for them, use it towards her burial."
"Ralph," shouted Goody Worthing, "Open the door for Missus Morgan now!"
The oldest boy trotted through from the garden holding the usual stick essential to all boys of any age, opened the door for her. Portia put her mask back on and walked out of the house, remembering her own marketing basket just in time. Her heart was tight up against her ribs, throbbing from God's knife stuck in it, but she ignored that. Her head was mercifully busy with ideas and thoughts, packed tight with them. She needed to make one more visit as herself and then she needed to sit in an inn somewhere and think it all o
ut over a cup of aqua vitae...
She caught herself. As the respectable though shy widow Mrs Morgan she couldn't do that, so she would have to change into her brother again. But first she had to visit the merchant's wife who owned the yard where Goody Harbridge's body had been found.
She found the woman unwilling to receive visitors. It was only when Portia sent in the warrant she had from Fleetwood as James Enys that she was admitted to sit in another golden oaklined parlour with a good display of plate.
The woman who came downstairs was well-dressed in a new brown velvet English-cut gown, over the rounding belly of early pregnancy. She looked tired which was hardly surprising. If the baby being wetnursed by Goody Worthing was born in summer she must have been with child again barely after she was churched. She looked anxious.
"Yes mistress?" she said, "how may I help you?"
"I'm so sorry to trouble you, mistress," Portia began carefully, not quite sure how to proceed. It was all rather complicated. "My brother has been charged by Mr Recorder Fleetwood with finding out who killed the old woman that was found by your jakes. He asked if I would help him by speaking privately with you."
Mrs Bailey looked surprised, then afraid. Then she nodded and clasped her hands at her waist.
"We don't know her at all and... er... we don't know how she came there," said the woman in a high drone.
"He asked me to do it," Portia added carefully, "because you might be more able to speak to me than to him."
"We don't know her," repeated Mrs Bailey, her voice shaking.
How to put it to her without getting Goody Worthing in trouble?
"Mr Cheke the apothecary told me... my brother that she used to find herbs for him and that she had been a midwife. Is it possible she might have attended you..." The woman's face was scarlet and suddenly Portia realised why she might not want to admit that she knew the old midwife. "...or someone you know?"
Portia stared at the merchant's pregnant wife. Come on, she thought to herself, I don't care what you asked Goody Harbridge to do when you found out you were pregnant again so soon, especially as it seems she didn't do it. Come on, get the message.
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