Knaves Templar

by Leonard Tourney

  “Oh, it’s you, Phipps.”

  “ Theophilus, please. No hard feelings—at least on my part. Intemperate words are small matters; a wise man forgets and fotgives them. But why are you sitting here all alone?”

  “Thinking.”

  “Ah, a dangerous pastime. Another wise man has said that he who devotes an hour to honest thought will determine presently that life is not worth the trouble. ”

  “A truly depressing view,” replied Keable, rising. He wanted to get away from Phipps. This reconciliation was somehow unnatural, but Phipps took Keable’s arm and steered him toward the door, keeping close to him like a jailer escorting his prisoner to his cell.

  “Sir Henry Braithwaite and his lady, both full of grief, came this morning along with their surgeon, the illustrious Millcock, he who is prince of physicians both in skill and fee.”

  “With what result?” asked Keable, resigning himself to Phipps’s company and in fact pleased to learn any new information regarding his status in the Inn.

  “Millcock pronounced Braithwaite’s death the result of natural causes, clearing Leyland of blame and, of more interest to you, sir, your honorable self.”

  “Old news, Theophilus,” Keable said. “Hutton told me before noon.”

  ‘‘Of course, Millcock’s diagnosis is false,” Phipps continued undisconcertedly, ‘‘as I told you. All of which serves to demonstrate that human mischief is always a step or two ahead of learning. ”

  They found a quiet alcove in which to continue the conversation.

  ‘‘Well, then, I have saved the best for last,” Phipps said.

  “And that is—?”

  “After the body was looked into, the Braithwaites went up to Hutton’s office, where they conferred a good half hour with Matthew Stock. Naturally, I listened at the door.”

  “Naturally,” Keable said dryly.

  “Stock asked a great many questions about young Braith-waite, most particularly about what he knew of any secret combination among the students.”

  Keable looked quickly at Phipps. ‘ ‘My God, how did Stock find out about that?”

  Phipps smiled and started to put a comforting hand on Keable’s arm, but Keable had seen the overture in time to prevent it. He shrank a little, and Phipps withdrew his hand. “Easy, man,” Phipps said. “I told him, that’s how. But not from whom the information came. That remains our little secret. I tore a page from your own book, you see. To secure a confidence, one must be forthcoming himself. You now see before you Master Stock’s assistant—by Hutton’s appointment.”

  “I suppose that is why you had to listen at the door,” Keable said, smirking.

  “Oh, that, well, that was for the Braithwaites. I swear to you everything I overheard by stealth, Stock confided to me openly later.”

  “What did Sir Henry say in response to Stock’s question?”

  “He knew nothing at all—scoffed at the very notion. His good lady said she knew nothing of secret combinations, found the suggestion an offense to her son’s memory. She said her son was a healthy young man who in recent times had slept a good deal more than before and had trances or some such blather, but nothing more.”

  “What’s this of trances?”

  “The very word she used. I made nothing of it—a mother’s fussing about her son’s habits. As common as dung. Much learning dulls the edge of husbandry, say I. Not that Braithwaite could be faulted on that score, but the habits learned in the Temple are not easily practiced at home. What the woman did not know was how late Braithwaite was probably staying up carousing, although God knows what he found of interest to do of nights in Surrey.”

  Keable asked if there was more, engrossed now, his curiosity having overpowered his repugnance.

  “Only that Stock was curiously candid. He told them he was Cecil’s agent. Named Cecil outright! I wonder that the Principal Secretary cannot find agents of more discretion. Now, there’s a post you’d fill with distinction, dear Edward, should you grow weary of jurisprudence.”

  Keable said nothing in reply. Mention of Cecil's name had started him to worry again about his own precarious position. Maybe Braithwaite had died of natural causes and Phipps had trumped up the story of the skulking murderer. Maybe the suicides were all just that and the gathering in Monk’s chamber no more than young men telling dirty stories after dark. But Matthew Stock was real enough—and Cecil was no man to take lightly. There was indeed something to worry about.

  “Stock also asked the Braithwaites about Prideaux.”

  “Yes, and-”

  “Sir Henry mentioned a noted lawyer of the City. You have heard of him. ’ ’

  “Yes.”

  “Sir Henry also mentioned a Norwich apothecary of the same name. No relation, evidently. Someone who was hanged five years ago.”

  “Then Stock learned little from his interview,” said Keable, relieved.

  “In late morning he and his wife had a long conversation in the garden. I watched from a distance. Unfortunately I couldn’t get close enough to hear anything. After a quarter of an hour they went separate ways. I tracked Stock.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “To the house of Prideaux the advocate, where he stayed a good hour and a half before emeiging again.”

  “I wonder what he found out.”

  “Ha, you will praise my ingenuity, Edward, when I tell you that after he left, I, surmising he was about to return to the Temple, went into the same lawyer’s house—a very elegant establishment, I assure you—and representing myself as a client in potentia,wheedled out of Prideaux’s man the whole story of Stock’s visit.”

  “And-?”

  “He was given the boot.”

  “What?”

  “You heard what I said. I had it from the lawyer’s manservant himself. Evidently Prideaux was gracious enough to the little clothier until he found out he was not a paying client but had come only for information.”

  “So the visit came to nothing,” said Keable.

  “Nothing for Stock. But something for us, Edward. For we have learned, my friend, that if anything, Stock is more fogbound than we. He gropes in the dark, for all his grand connections to the high-and-mighty Sir Robert Cecil. His long walk to Prideaux’s house for such small reward sounds the depth of Stock’s confusion. After all, the name Prideaux on the list—despite the fifth man you observed in Monk’s room—may only be the doodling of an idle mind. ”

  “I wouldn’t call Giles’s list doodling,” Keable said. “I knew Giles well. So did you. His mind was never idle. His very sobriety was a fault in him. As for scrupulousness—” “I agree Giles was scrupulous,” Phipps replied sharply. “But if he had few friends, it was because he cared more for his scruples than for his friends.”

  “You’re bitter on that point, Theophilus, because he once scolded you for wearing your rapier in the House.”

  “And like a busybody, reported the same to Hutton,” Phipps said. “But I won’t speak ill of the dead. He that violates the memory of a dead man is like a swine that roots up graves.”

  “Well, you will never be guilty of so grave a sin, Theophilus,” Keable said. “I am going to my chamber. I’ve no stomach for supper. I just hope to God that with Braithwaite’s death, all’s done and past, and that Matthew Stock will discern no more than he now knows.”

  Phipps looked at Keable with hard eyes. “You may pray all you want, Edward, yet you and I both know it will fall out otherwise. Unless we first discover what Monk and the others were about in that chamber when you saw what you should not have seen.”

  “And how are we to do that?” Keable asked.

  “Follow Stock,” said Phipps. “For even a blind man will sooner or later find what he seeks—if he doesn’t fall into a pit and break his neck first. As for your worthy seif, avoid Stock like the plague. If your paths should cross, deny everything. Meanwhile I’ll follow our Chelmsford constable for whatever crumbs may drop from his table.”

  Having said good-b
ye to Matthew the second time that day, Joan remembered what she had not told him about her earlier excursion—that she had seen Nan and Leyland walking together and going into the Brownes’ house. Why had she forgotten to say something about that? It had disturbed her so at the time, and she did not feel much better about it now. Was she trying to protect Nan from Matthew’s ill opinion of her? Did she fear Matthew’s suspicions might confirm her own and undermine her loyalty to the young woman who had been so loyal to her?

  She gathered up poor, dutiful Robert, who was a little wobbly now after a good hour in the tavern, but what he had lost in sobriety he had gained in tractability. She was two streets from the Temple Gate when by chance she saw Jacob Flowerdewe coming back from whatever errand had taken him forth, his eyes fixed on the cobbles, inured to the way like a blind man who needs no cane. She stopped him and asked what she thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask, about Ley-land, where he lived. It was a natural question, she thought, coming from the wife who might reasonably need to consult with the physician about her husband’s condition. Yes, Jacob knew the house. Had he not fetched Master Leyland from thence a hundred times to minister to the sick and injured of the Middle Temple? Master Leyland occupied a house on Bishopsgate Street. He lived with his old mother, a widow, who kept an apothecary shop.

  “The mother’s name wouldn’t be Browne, would it?”

  Oh yes, that was the name. Then Joan knew where Ley-land lived after all. Jacob smiled. Yes, that was the place. He wished Joan good day.

  Joan thanked him, shook his trembling old man’s hand firmly, and wished him the same. So Nan and Leyland occupied the same house! Why shouldn’t they be walking together in the street—and into the door?

  Now she was glad she had not disclosed her fear to Matthew and undermined his own confidence in Nan. In a second the mystery had been solved.

  Or had it? Suddenly it struck Joan as curious that Nan had said nothing about having the physician for a neighbor, particularly one who frequently practiced at the Inns of Court.

  The curious thing made her feel all prickly. Doubt again, someone walking on her grave. Weary from her ramblings, she had planned to go home, keep her promise to foot-weary Robert, sick of trudging after her. But she needed to settle her doubt. That must come before the comfortable parlor, warm fire, clean sheets, and the repose of earnest merit.

  It was late in the afternoon now and already darkening; lights were being lit along the street, the crowds were thinning out. She turned to Robert, whose expression had taken on the long-suffering droop of a martyr, and told him they would make one last stop along the way. She assured him she would be only a minute. The apothecary shop on Bishopsgate Street. This time to confer with her husband’s physician. Robert regarded her blankly and said nothing. Joan set out.

  She had no trouble finding the house this time. She told Robert to while away the time in a tavern across the street, a proposition to which he agreed with great alacrity. The apothecary shop downstairs was closed already for the day, but the door to the upstairs was unlocked and Joan went up, thinking she would find someone at home, either Nan or Leyland.

  She climbed the narrow stairs to the landing and inhaled again the acrid exhalations of the apothecary’s art. She knocked at the door opposite Nan’s and waited. She could hear footfalls within, then the bar being lifted.

  “Ah, it’s you again, is it?” Mistress Browne said sternly, peering out from a half-opened door. “Still looking for a potion for your father? I suppose you have remembered its name now, but the shop is closed for the day. You’ll have to return tomorrow. ’ ’

  Joan said she was looking for Master Leyland.

  “Oh, him. Well, he isn’t here,” Mistress Browne said, looking rather pleased to be the bearer of these tidings. Then she declared with a pride too obvious to be feigned, “He’s my son, you see.”

  All this while, Mistress Browne had spoken from inside the partially opened door. Joan could see only the woman’s face; a little light showed through the crack. There was the noxious odor of chemicals. A gurgle of something aboil. An image of gross witchcraft enhanced by the old woman’s cranky expression floated in and out of Joan’s mind, causing temporary confusion. Why was Joan really here? What did she expect to confirm or refute?

  “When will he return, your son?”

  “How should I know? I’m not his keeper, only his mother.” She said this bitterly. Joan sensed a domestic broil lurking beneath the old woman’s comment. But wasn’t it natural for sons to go their own ways?

  “My husband is a patient of his—at the Middle Temple,” Joan said, thinking that honest information would make the old woman more forthcoming. Now she felt an even stronger need to settle her doubts. Joan smelled a rat. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the Templar murders, but it had something to do with Nan Warren.

  “Strange you did not mention the fact this morning when you came on your father’s behalf,” said Mistress Browne, closing the door a little more so that now only her eyes and forehead could be seen. “What’s your game? You weren’t come for medication today, or you would have taken what was offered you. Now you come asking for my son. A likely story, too, since his practice is very small. You don’t look like a lawyer’s wife to me—you don’t talk like a lawyer’s wife. And all that are there in die Middle Temple are lawyers, so says my son. As thick as fleas on a dog. Tell me why you are really here asking all these question or you’ll be sorry. ” Mistress Browne stepped out from behind the door and glowered at Joan threateningly. The woman was a good fifteen to twenty years older than Joan but a head taller and much broader, and her intimidating stance caused Joan’s heart to leap into her throat with alarm:

  “I warrant you’re a thief or burglar, snooping around to see what breaking and entering may profit you. Confess that it’s so, or I swear I’ll call the watch, I will, but first I’ll beat you roundly.”

  The angry woman seized Joan by the collar, then hurled her against the wall. ‘‘Why, you’re a puny thing, you are,” snarled Mistress Browne.

  “I’ve come to consult your son,” Joan managed to say, trembling with fear of another attack by the sturdy old woman, and racked with pain from where her shoulder had struck the wall. “I am no thief, nor burglar, but an honest Christian soul. My husband has a wounded thigh, which your son healed with his art. My husband resides at the Middle Temple. He’s a guest there, no lawyer. About the Queen’s business. Earlier when I was here, I had no idea Master Leyland was your son. I’d have come to consult him about my husband’s condition.”

  “And pray, fish-face, who told you he lived here?”

  “It was the old porter at the Middle Temple, Jacob Flow-erdewe.”

  The mention of the familiar name seemed to calm the angry woman. She assumed a less threatening posture. “Well, old Jacob I know. If what you say is true, then all well and good. My son isn’t here, and I don’t know when he’ll be back. He goes his own way now, now that that woman has come to live in the house. ” She nodded toward the door opposite.

  “You mean Nan Warren?” Joan said.

  “So you know her too,” the old woman asked suspiciously.

  “Yes.” Joan thought it better not to reveal to the mother that Nan was a friend. She was beginning to sense the grounds of dispute between son and mother, jealous of a rival in the house, a young woman in her prime.

  The old woman made a snorting noise and opened the door enough for Joan to see inside. It was not a bedchamber, for there was no bed to be seen, but more of a scholar’s study or alchemist’s den. In the center of the chamber was a long table laden with jars and vials, alembics and other glass vessels. There was also a furnace all smoking and stinking. Joan glimpsed a yellowing death’s-head like the ones grave scholars used to contemplate their mortality. It was being used as a paperweight beneath which were a sheaf of papers, and everywhere, upon the table where the vials and other vessels were not, were books and manuscripts.

  Mistress Browne noticed Joan’s
stare and grew suspicious again, but she didn’t close the door or obstruct Joan’s view. “You’re a curious sort, aren’t you? This is my son’s study, that’s what it is, and he makes his medications here. Come in.”

  Wary but too curious to refuse, Joan accepted the invitation. Mistress Browne led Joan over to the table with all the vials, the stinking furnace. The woman pointed to the skull. “See that? You’ll notice a hole in the death’s-head. Now, here was one overly curious as to matters none of his concern. And see what befell him. See that vial over there?”

  Joan saw the vial—at least she saw a vial that she thought was the one she was being directed to look at. It was pear-shaped and stopped with a cork. Inside was a pale, yellow liquid the color of urine.

  “There’s a pretty little sublimate for you,” said Mistress Browne with a cackle that conjured up another vision of witchcraft in Joan’s head. The woman made a move toward the vial, made as though to pick it up, then stopped and smiled grimly.

  Joan did not stand on ceremony in her leaving. She turned and rushed for the door and was down the stairs and into the street within seconds, gasping for breath and looking about for Robert. Where was the man when she needed him? From upstairs came peals of hoarse laughter.

  The street was dark now except for the little alehouse. Music came from it, men’s loud voices, and Robert’s, she thought. She crossed the street and peered in the window. Robert was leaning on the bar, grinning foolishly at the man next to him. He was disheveled, slobbering, another tosspot out on the town. If Frances Cooke could only see her husband’s dour groom now, Joan thought with wry amusement. A fine guardian he was in his present condition, but then, was she not in some way responsible?

  She would have to go inside and drag him home—in some ways a more onerous chore than her encounter with the awful Mistress Browne. She turned to look back at the apothecary’s and noticed Mistress Browne leaving, in a great hurry to get off somewhere. Upstairs, there remained a light in the window of Leyland’s study. An intriguing place, all those books and papers. The mysterious vials. Something told Joan the room was important, Leyland was important—beyond his connection with Nan, whatever it was.