“Necessity is a foul word if it leads to a foul life,” Joan said. She told Nan where she lived.
Joan went out with her protectress, feeling very awkward and unnatural in her male attire. On their way down the passage, they were passed by a rough-looking sailor and another of the Gull’s women, but neither paid any attention to Joan, and she was relieved, feeling that she had passed the first test.
At the head of the stairs, Joan looked down. The tavern was less crowded than before. Her eyes searched for Flynch; she spotted him in the midst of his fellows at the bar. Apparently recovered from his wounds, he seemed to be telling some yam, for all his friends were looking at him and laughing at regular intervals. Joan held her breath and descended, her arm linked with Nan’s as though they had just shared more than conversation in the chamber above.
Joan made her way around the tables toward the door, Nan still leading her. The customers now seemed too drunk to take notice. Some were asleep with their heads on their arms. She might have been invisible. She felt Nan squeeze her hand encouragingly, and in the next moment Joan stepped out into the night.
It took her little time to reach Cooke House; she ran almost all the way, grateful that the sleet had stopped and her sense of direction had remained true despite the evening’s events.
She stood outside the door, knocking frantically, for she was very cold. After a few moments the groom whose protection she had scorned earlier that day thrust his head out to see who was knocking at such an unseemly hour.
“No, madam,” replied Robert, turning his head slightly to acknowledge the direction of the question. “Only some strange youth.” He turned to look at Joan suspiciously. “Well, what is it, boy? Tell me your business and do it quickly, or be off with you! ”“Is that Mistress Stock come home again?” called Frances Cooke worriedly from somewhere within.
Seven
HOMESICKNESS clutched at his heart. Through the narrow panes of his chamber window, Matthew looked out into the night. The storm had struck with a fury, sleet pelted the glass, and he was glad to be indoors, grateful for a companionable fire cracking and sputtering on the hearth. He thought of Joan and wondered what she was doing. He imagined her sitting in the parlor of Cooke House, cozy and safe, enjoying the warmth of a similar fire and perhaps engaged in some pleasant discourse with Frances Cooke. He was glad that the two women had become friends, but his separation from his wife troubled him sorely.
He turned from the window and sat down in the chair he had pulled up to the fire in an effort to make his strange surroundings more homelike. The fire had been laid an hour before by the wizened old man with bent back and pinched, scrupulous face. He had made a great fuss about the fire, the old man—as though the positioning of faggots and mounding of kindling were as much an art as the drafting of deeds and quittances. He said his name was Jacob Flowerdewe. He said he was the underporter, a title he pronounced with pride, as though he had come to his station by royal appointment.
Jacob bragged that he remembered the name of every Templar he had served, his face and his humors too, and that he knew all the nooks and crannies of the Temple. He claimed he had hardly set foot outside the Temple precincts since good Queen Bess came in to save England from the Whore of Babylon, the wicked Mary.
“Jacob, sir. They all call me Jacob, plain and simple, for nomen nonsufficit, as the learned say, and my Christian name sufficit very well, I think.”
“Jacob let it be,” said Matthew, amused at the old porter’s prattle and its curious mixture of plain language and legal terms. “I am told the last resident of this chamber died in it.”
Jacob looked pained at the thought. “Oh, he did indeed, sir. Bless me, it’s as true as God’s word. He stretched his neck from the very beam above your head. I saw the body myself, sir—and a cheerless sight it was, with his face all swollen and his tongue extended and his eyes as big as tennis balls.”
“Suicide,” said Matthew.
“Yes, sir, a thing malum in se, as the learned would have it. Not merely malum prohibitum.”
“Indeed,” said Matthew, as though all this were fresh news.
“And his chamberfellow,” Jacob continued in a confidential whisper, “Edward Litchfield, met a similar fate. Cut his wrists, he did. Right down on the Temple Stairs.”
“Very curious—both men suicides.”
“And there was another.”
“You don’t say!”
Jacob nodded sagely. Although his matter was gruesome, he seemed delighted to be the bearer of it. “I reckon it thus. If one young gentleman of the House kills himself, then that’s a proper tragedy. If his chamberfellow does the same, that’s passing strange. But if within a fortnight a third turns himself off by gobbling down poison, well, that exceeds the limit, in my way of thinking. That’s what I call an enormity.”
“Have you no explanation for these enormities, as you call them?” Matthew asked.
“I, sir? Well, no, Master Stock. Far be it from me to offer an explanation. I say the deaths are curious and a fit and proper enormity and disgrace to the House and the families and the whole lawyerly race. But as far as opinions go, I leave those to the learned.”
Jacob asked if Matthew wanted anything else.
“No, Jacob, God rest you.”
“And you, sir, and you. It’s a cruel night without, sir. God save us all from evil thoughts and the Devil’s works.”
Jacob glanced quickly at the ceiling, then back at Matthew. He grinned a toothless grin, but Matthew saw a glimmer of fear in the old man’s eyes and he knew what Jacob was thinking. He was thinking about Litchfield and Monk, about the corpses of young men who had laid violent hands upon themselves in wanton violation of God’s holy ordinance. And perhaps he was suspecting, as did Matthew, that the suicides had been murders.
So earlier. Now Matthew prepared for bed and was on his knees in nightly prayer when a knock came at the door.
It was Keable, his neighbor, bottle in hand, and obviously drunk.
Keable asked if he could come in and talk. “Wilson’s sleeping,” he said, “and I thought you might like to share a bottle of the grape. It’s a bold Spaniard. Very sweet, I assure you.”
Matthew said he would not drink but invited Keable in; he was tired, but if Keable wanted to talk that was all the better. He had found out little about the murders from Jacob Flowerdewe; perhaps he would have more luck with Keable.
“I see Jacob has done well by your fire. An amusing fellow, Jacob. He’s somewhat of an institution here—senior to some of the bricks and mortar, and a great weaver of barbarous phrases. I suppose he said something about the dead men?”
“He did,” Matthew said.
Keable paused, as though inviting Matthew to expand on the theme, but when Matthew made no reply, Keable sat down on the foot of Matthew’s bed. He pulled the cork from
the bottle with a practiced hand. He had brought two goblets. “You’re sure about the wine?”
“Quite sure. Thanks all the same. Go ahead, however, please yourself.”
Keable bowed slightly, grinned, and poured himself a full goblet. He sipped it slowly, while Matthew watched.
“Well, then, Master Stock. What think you of this unseemly business?”
“The suicides?”
“Yes, a wicked situation to draw your son into, don’t you think?”
“I suppose it is, yet he knows his own mind.”
Keable stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You’re a clothier by trade, aren’t you?”
Matthew said he was, relieved to have something he could speak truly of.
“I thought it was the desire of all fathers that their sons follow them in trade.”
“Well, that’s true enough,” Matthew said. “So was my desire, and so is still. Yet my son shows no love for cloth, and I would not be a father who rules through compulsion.”
“Very wise,” said Keable, draining his goblet. He poured himself another drink and pledged it to Matthew. ‘ ‘God sav
e all well-meaning fathers, for heaven knows they are a scarce commodity.”
Keable’s good looks had diminished in his drunken state. His face was flushed and his eyes were bleary.
“Thomas Cooke was saying Litchfield and Monk were involved in some kind of play?” Matthew asked, eager to move conversation off the topic of his mythical son and on to his real interests.
“Ah yes,” Keable said. “And so am I. The lot of us had parts, but the play’s a wretched piece, as tried and true as a curate’s sermon.”
Matthew asked which parts the young men played, and Keable answered that both Monk and Litchfield had played woodland nymphs. The youth dissolved in sudden laughter. Tears streamed from his eyes and he slapped his knees.
“Some of the men were loath to dress as women. Litchfield had such a part, but was too giddy-headed to object. I suspect he enjoyed it—all that lace and velvet and the stuffed bodice. He was such a fool.”
“You speak ill of the dead,” Matthew said. “What of Monk, his chamberfellow?”
“Why, he should have hanged himself before.” Keable was suddenly serious again.
“Before-?”
“Sooner, rather than later! He was a very knave, you know. More profligate than Litchfield. Monk’s grandfather was a great judge of the Court of Chancery. Lawyering was in Litchfield’s blood. Speaking of obdurate fathers who over-direct their son’s lives, there was a case.”
“Who, the grandfather?”
“Nay, sir, his son. Monk’s father. Another lawyer, by the way.”
“Monk wished to pursue another profession, then, perhaps business or the Church?”
Keable laughed his mirthless laugh again. He let the empty bottle fall to the floor, where he kicked it with his foot. “He followed his father’s orders to the letter—a good, dutiful son. Now, me, my own father bade me come here, provided me with furnishings for my chamber, and pays me a comfortable allowance. But I’ll tell you the truth, Master Stock, I came here but for one reason and one alone.”
“And that was—”
“Why, to do my father’s will and therefore to be included in my father’s will, for sure as God made little fishes, my father threatened to cut me off without a groat if I disobeyed. While he provides for me generously, I will appear the dutiful offspring, forsaking hawking for the Hall and living well even while I seem to study his lawyerly rubbish. If I need more money to lay in food and wine, I write that I require an even greater sum to buy books. If I would spend on plays and cards, I write that my gown is rent and I must purchase another or be scorned for my poverty. Thus, I play my father like a pipe.”
Matthew forced a smile at these words, although they annoyed him. Drunk or sober, he would have never spoken so of his own father. Nor could Matthew respect a man who would. He decided to turn the conversation to Litchfield and Monk again.
“Was there enmity between Litchfield and Monk?” “Enmity?” Keable smiled, looking at Matthew vaguely. Unsteady, as though he were about ready to topple off the bed. “I think the contrary is true. They were the best of friends—a veritable Damon and Pythias. It was enough to make a body sick to see the two, walking around the grounds arm in arm. It was enough to call into question their very manhoods.”
“You mean they were—”
“Nay, they did not approach that vice, though God knows it abounds among our pallid youth. Monk was a whoremasterly rogue, and in that homely liberal art, Litchfield was an earnest disciple. As for Monk, I could name you a certain tavern in the neighborhood of most dissolute character, in which every slattern had taken the measure of his codpiece.”
“But you called Monk a zealous student of the law.” “Ah, by day, by day, sir. At night he took his pleasures in the town. You must understand, Master Stock, the two pursuits are not at cross-purposes. Too much work dulls the edge of husbandry. ’ ’
“What of the other man who killed himself—by poison, I think I heard? What manner of man was he?”
“As opposed to young Litchfield and Monk as night the day,” said Keable. “A pure, unadulterated drudge if there ever was one. Lived and breathed the law—and religion. Would you believe it, I never saw the man laugh but once, and that was at some villainously obscure pun in a sermon. Nay, Hugh Giles was an unlikely denizen of these worthy quarters, vety pious, I assure you.”
“But he remained,” Matthew said.
“Hah,” replied Keable, his speech slurred more than ever. “He hied off to a better world. Now he’s in Heaven—or in Hell, for all his piety, for our ever-
quarreling sects do not allow all who pray and preach access to God’s throne.”
“I take it you liked this Giles no more than Litchfield or Monk,” Matthew said.
Keable smiled faintly as though he were remembering something. “In truth, Giles counted me a friend. But you asked for a candid appraisal of his character. I hope you don’t think the less of me for giving one. But I’ll tell you one thing, Master Stock.” Keable paused, breathed deeply, and then bent over with a cautionary finger at his lips as though it were a state secret he was about to disclose. “They formed a close-knit group, those three—Litchfield, Monk, and Giles. A very tight little group.”
Matthew looked at the drunken young man, anticipating more in the way of revelation but unsure of the significance of what he had already received. Keable’s lips were set. He nodded sleepily, then stood up.
“I must go to bed,” he said. “Many thanks for your company.”
Matthew assured Keable the pleasure had been his, but felt the assurance stick in his throat. He did not like Keable. He did not like Keable’s kind—drunk or sober. And as the young man staggered out, Matthew was not sure whether there had been truth in Keable’s wine or an artful deception.
Keable groped his way toward his chambers and was fumbling at the door when he noticed Theophilus Phipps lurking at the end of the corridor. His curiosity, coupled with mild irritation because he despised Phipps, sobered him. “You keep late hours, Master Phipps. About the Treasurer’s business, I warrant. Or perhaps the Devil’s?”
“The Treasurer’s business is happily concluded for the day,” Phipps said lightly. “The Devil never sleeps.”
“A witty response, Master Phipps. Also true. But I’ve a bee buzzing in my bonnet and am in no mood for banter. Therefore, if your prowling has some purpose—”
“I assure you it does. A piece of information.”
“News of court?” Keable asked impatientfy.
“Somewhat closer to home, dear Keable. Yes, somewhat closer to home.”
Eight
BY the time Joan awoke, it was already broad daylight, city bells clamored, and muted voices from distant rooms signaled she was last to arise. After her ordeal of the night before, she had slept like the dead; now her narrow escape from Will Flynch’s violence came back to her, along with fresh remembrance of Nan Warren’s generous and heroic service. Regretting that a young woman of such qualities dwelt in so loathsome a place, she got out of bed and dressed, thinking all the while how she might help the unfortunate Nan. Then a maid entered to say that the master of the house had left early that day for the Temple and that the mistress lay abed still. Joan was invited to breakfast at her leisure.
In her conversation with the Cookes the night before, Joan had been discreet about her misadventure at the Gull. She had been embarrassed to confess she had been set upon in a common brothel and then forced to don man’s clothing to escape with her life—and doubtless with her virtue too. She had resorted to a fiction to save face, and in the version she conveyed to her anxious hosts, she had been assaulted by thieves and had been provided with male attire by an honest stranger who had taken pity on her.
More than plausible, the story had, by all signs she could observe, been accepted at face value. The Cookes had been sympathetic, especially Frances, who, not ungratified at having been proven right by Joan’s experience, had repeated her admonishments about the dangers of walking abroad in London w
hen the streets were black as pitch. It had been all Joan could do to keep Thomas Cooke from giving Robert the gate for failing to protect a guest under the master’s roof.
“The fault was mine,” Joan said. “Robert did his duty. I ran ahead; poor fellow, he could not keep up.”
At Joan’s insistence, Thomas forgave Robert, and an unusual softening of the groom’s normally grim countenance suggested he appreciated Joan’s intercession.
Thomas reminded Joan that he was responsible for her safety, especially since Matthew was at the Temple and unable to afford a husband’s protection. With a face heavy with concern, Thomas begged her to take greater care in die future.
Unaccustomed to being told where she could go and where she could not, Joan felt like a child. But she promised she would comply, determined nonetheless in her heart not to surrender an inch of free will.
But that had been last night as she stood, quivering and humiliated, by the great roaring fire in the Cookes’ parlor, still dressed in the patched doublet and ill-favored, coarse stockings of the adulterous husband of Nan Warren’s humorous tale. Now it was morning. Dressed a woman again, she descended to the kitchen, drawn by the aroma of things cooking there and a craving for a full stomach to begin the day upon. She had just finished her breakfast and was beginning to wonder how she might help Nan as well as Matthew under her new restrictions when Robert came in to say that there was a woman asking for her at the door and that she had given her name as Nan Warren.
Joan was delighted at the prospect of seeing her rescuer so soon after the event. She told Robert to show Nan to the parlor, mentioning at the same time that Nan was the helpful stranger who had provided Joan with her disguise the night before.
Joan hardly recognized the Nan Warren whom seconds later she found awaiting her. Dressed in a modest gray gown beneath a cape of sad color, and of a fresh, scrubbed countenance, Nan might have been a shopkeeper’s daughter or better—perhaps even a gentleman’s wife. She was certainly no longer the siren of the previous evening who had so brazenly flaunted her bosom before the lustful eyes of the Gull’s rude patrons and invited them to bid upon her body as though she were a horse at the Smithfield auction.
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