That had really fired up the conflict, since at the time the parliament was in a savage mood, eager to trim clerical arrogance. As a consequence of claiming common law precedence, Hunne was arrested by Bishop Tunstall and lodged in the city Lollard’s Tower at St Paul’s. It was there that the blackening of More’s reputation began. Hunne was found dead in his cell the next day. Apparently he had ‘hung himself” in remorse, regret and despair or so claimed More, most recently in a tract slamming Simon Fish’s recent complaint against the clergy. No one believed it then or now, and a London inquest decided that the gaolers had killed Hunne on instructions from superiors—the Bishop’s chancellor, Dr Horsley no less.
More was brought in to defend the Church and he was ‘shocked’ to discover that when Hunne’s possessions were investigated, an English translation of the Bible was found, complete with extensive margin notes denying the validity of the Mass. Strangely this massive tome and four others were said to have been found in the dead man’s cell in the Lollard tower. How a large locked box full of heretical texts escaped notice by all the Bishop’s servants and gaolers was never explained. As a consequence the draper’s body was tried as a heretic, condemned, and that week burnt at Smithfield. But that was not all. As a convicted heretic the Church, by rights, seized all the deceased’s possessions to the value of ten thousand pounds.
And More, for his defence, was given a cut of the proceeds and gained an unsavoury reputation for creating facts and evidence, as well as an introduction to the potential profits of heretic hunting. It was a dubious history that the city was now forced to take into account when dealing with the new Lord Chancellor.
In light of these possible levers, Ned shifted onto another fertile patch of legal revenue. “Upset any business rivals or disgruntled relatives recently?”
He had actually meant it as a lighter suggestion after dragging up the Londoner’s smouldering resentment about the Hunne murder. But it appeared that it was taken a good deal more seriously. Meg adopted that deeply introspective look of hers as if she was chewing over a particularly bitter herb. “There is a continuing difficulty with a couple of aunts. They have threatened to take a dispute to court. That could be one.”
It sounded a reluctant admission and from what Ned recalled, on their first meeting Meg had claimed that the estate had been settled and there was no need for the meddling of lawyers. Apparently that wasn’t so. There was nothing like a prosperous estate to draw the vultures, though frequently monetary value had little to do with the rancour engendered in family battles. He’d heard of one bitter dispute between cousins that raged for years in the courts, over a scrap of land barely large enough to support a cow. It must have cost the equal to a hundred acres by the time it went through appeals, petitions and judgements.
But could blood or family throw their kin to the wolves? Having seen what he had, Ned had no doubt that such actions would be accounted merciful when weighed against years of perceived insult or degradation at family gatherings. After all there was nothing like cheek by jowl association to build up a really good generation encompassing loathing. From the bleak look of despair on Meg Black’s face perhaps this was not the best line to pursue.
Ned thought it might be more instructive to plunge into another area of interest as a distraction. “What can you tell me about the way you trade with this vessel and cargo?”
That certainly distracted her. Rather than worrying about renegade members of her family, Meg now looked at him as if he had spouted horns, a tail and went moo. “Why do you want to know?” she asked suspiciously.
This, he suspected, was another touchy subject. “Because despite the obvious interest of Sir Thomas More, we still have no reason for the murders, and I still feel that we are missing something here.”
Margaret Black displayed a great reticence to when it came to divulging the mystical intricacies of the smugglers craft. Ned had made no move to leave and was just stood in place, smiling patiently. This was one skirmish he was going to win.
Eventually after a few attempts at further frowning intimidation and a long glaring silence, Meg Black gave a frustrated sigh and yielded to his question. “So be it, Ned.”
If you gave coin for reluctance, Meg Black would be richer by a hundred angels. He ignored the tone and gave a small courtly bow as a concession to her compliance.
A twitched, sceptical eye brow was its only acknowledgement. “As I’ve already said, all cargo has to pass through the customs house, where the collectors and their clerks weigh and evaluate the cargo for taxes and duties.”
“What? Everything on the ship? On every ship?” Ned was more than surprised. That was a pretty tall order for so few officials and so much cargo. He did a quick calculation. There must be forty ships arriving or leaving here every day.
Meg’s frown eased as she continued the explanation. “Yes. The controller of customs has two more sets of retainers. One inspects the ships at the docks and they’re called land–waiters. The second are down Gravesend way and they row out to the ships to check that nothing extra has been picked up or dropped off in the estuaries near Greenwich or Tilbury, along the way. They’re the tide–waiters.”
For the second time since he’d arrived Ned noticed how her blue grey eyes sparkled when she wasn’t frowning. His better angel made a pointed reminder about the business at hand and Ned only slightly guiltily asked his next question. “So what happens once the customs men have had a look at the cargo? What are they after?”
“Officially they search for any banned items that aren’t covered in the purchased exemption issued by a royal officer in accordance with the statutes. Like the grain importing during February.”
Oh yes he remembered that little scam, the ever lucrative royal licences. “So even if it isn’t wheat or oats, you still have to buy a right to ship your cargo?” To Ned that sounded bizarre.
“No Ned, not quite. This is how it works. This vessel is to sail to Bristol and discharge half its cargo. Then according to arrangements already made, one of the local merchant’s will load fifty dickers of leather hides. That is fifty bundles of ten. But before that, he would have to pay thirteen shillings for the licence per dicker and he would have to buy the hides at forty to fifty shillings a dicker.”
Ned was aghast. That was a quarter of the cost added as a duty. “By sweet Jesu, that’s expensive!”
Meg Black shook her head and gave him a questioning frown, as if he’d fallen for the simplest cozener’s play at a market stall. “Of course it would be! If a merchant paid for a licence for everything, they’d soon find themselves in prison for debt.”
Then she adopted what Ned normally thought of as her ‘the cat who’d got the cream’ smile. “What we do is simple. We form an association to buy a licence exactly like we did for the grain. Then we stretch the coverage, so that instead of fifty dickers of hide we would ship a few hundred.”
Ahh thought, Ned, the cony–catchers trick. Watch the right hand while the left changes the dice. “What about all the customs officers? Wouldn’t they be able to check? It seems like a very simple matter to poke your head in the hold and match up numbers.”
At his question Meg Black gave one of her supercilious knowing smiles and shook her head. “No it isn’t. Remember Ned, most of the customs officers are merchants as well, and although land and tide waiters are supposed to get a reward for any contraband they find, well...”
She gave the slightest twitch of a shrug and Ned got the message. Of course, gifts and bribes, the grease on the wheels of commerce. Any potential reward would naturally be from the Royal Exchequer. Their reputation for speedy payment was legendary—you could expect Judgement Day to happen first.
Meg Black gave a simple nod at his recognition and continued. “When the cargo is checked at any port, all you have to do is get the cooperation of the local customs collector. A share in the cargo usually does it.”
And Ned had thought a lawyer’s contract was complex. This arrangement of eva
sion was beginning to look more convoluted than a right of lease to three tenants, five sub tenants, and six owners. “But how can you afford to pay for all the…the ‘gifts’?” Ned knew that bribes were a fact of life. However a gentleman tended to avoid the word ‘bribe’. ‘Gifts’ sounded much more honourable.
“That’s worked into the shipping costs. On average it costs one twentieth of the normal duties and taxes for any shipment, though it’s usually a good idea to pay up most of the duty on wool, cloth and grain, for at least a third to a half of the shipment. The officials, however, take the prissage duties on wine very seriously. Its one tun given over out of a cargo of twenty tuns, unless of course they are offloaded before the ship reaches the docks.”
Ned just shook his head in bemusement. No wonder merchants could be so well off. Maybe he was in the wrong profession. But somehow although it provided valuable background to the chicanery of trade, it still seemed unlikely to have been the cause of such a vile double murder, or so hinted his daemon.
At his clear aghast–ness, Meg gave one of her mischievous smiles and pressed on. “Well Ned, that isn’t the difficult part. Albrecht and I have to juggle the different weights and measures accepted in the English, Hanse, Imperial and French ports.”
Meg Black tapped the open ledger meaningfully to draw his attention. If that last part on duty evasion wasn’t complicated enough to strain a man’s brain, the calculation of shipping weights was a truly arcane art. Her tables of notations went on for several pages. To Ned it made less sense than the legal Latin–French he frequently had to struggle through. None the less he nodded acquiescence. As Meg explained the squiggly ciphers, he wasn’t going to thought a lackbrain.
“The accepted standard for any cargo is a tun, based on the wine tuns shipped from Bordeaux. As you know, that holds two hundred and fifty two gallons.”
Once more Ned nodded. Any fool who’d walked into a tavern knew that. The massive barrels were arranged behind the tavern keeper’s counter.
“Now, by city and royal statute, that is supposed to be a tontight, and is equal to twenty hundred weight—each hundred weight being one hundred and twelve pounds.”
Now at last this was something simple. Ned understood that part at least. Perhaps like lawyers, merchants just used strange terms to maintain the secrecy of the trade.
Meg Black’s eyes sparkled with just a hint of malice, or was that mischief, before continuing. “That’s not all. A tontight should also be equal to a ton mascull or two pipes of sack wine, or four hogsheads, or six tierce, or two butts, or three tarcyons, or forty pieces of figs, or twenty two kintails or finally, half a measure of Andalusia.”
Ned shook his head in bewilderment at the list, and feeling overwhelmed, tried to change the discussion. According to both his angel and daemon, now was perhaps was not such a good time to become acquainted with the arcane practices of trade.
“So Albrecht handles all these matters?”
This received a simple nod of assent from Mistress Black. The shifting of subjects to somewhere familiar definitely worked. Colour had come back to her cheeks and her eyes shone almost smokey sapphire in the warm yellow light of the lantern. Extremely attractively really.
Ned took a deep breathe. It was time to venture on to more treacherous ground. Trade may have been the background to murder. However he had the feeling he was missing something. Actually his shoulder daemon reminded him that on past evidence, Meg Black rarely gave the exact truth he needed, unless that was, she had no other choice. “Ahh, umm, Albrecht, ahh, didn’t have any disputes or grievances with Joachim, ahh, did he?”
Meg Black’s eyes narrowed and the shadow of wrath threatened a precipitous reappearance. Ned quickly gave his reasons before the consequences of such a question proved personally painful. “Any inquest will ask the same questions. If they’re stubborn or truculent, they’ll even find against him just out of spite.”
At that explanation Meg Black’s potential anger subsided and she shook her head. “No. Any merchant from the Steelyard would give evidence that Albrecht and Joachim were friends and business partners for over ten years. No problems or jealousies.”
Well at least that possibility was out of the way, although Ned could probably come up with several darker motives for a falling out between friends, if he had too. That was the easy part of his questioning. Now he took a deep breath. It was time to delve into the previously unmentioned ‘secrets of trade’.
***
Chapter 9. The Secrets of Trade, The Ruyter, Evening, 6th June
Previously Ned had skirted full knowledge of the dangerously, illicit trade that Meg Black pursued so whole heartedly. However, if he wanted to save Mistress Black and his good self from the Lord Chancellor’s singular attention, he had to become a willing accomplice. The difficulty lay in once he asked, well then there could be no turning back. Their ‘situation’ would have irrevocably changed, acquiring a more serious demeanour. It was not that he could claim ignorance of the penalties, or that he had been dragged in unwittingly. Ned’s more selfish daemon tried to point out that giving Meg to Lord Chancellor More would be a sensible career move, putting him firmly on the path to power and wealth. It was ironic that betrayal was so well rewarded, since to stay true to friends in this kind of situation led to close questioning and ‘religious instruction’ by Racking. Some of the lads at the Inns said that wasn’t so, hinting instead that Sir Thomas More preferred to employ the lash for truculent prisoners. Great, what a choice! Judas’s silver or his arms and legs got stretched!
Ned was almost a gentleman and he did still hold some honour despite how his lord or uncle treated him, so he while his conscience held firm he asked, “What of the illicit smuggling? Who handles that and how is it done?”
Meg Black spent a few moments considering the question. Ned could see that she was giving him a very intense consideration, trying to probe his motives. Examining his fingernails, he made a play at gentlemanly indifference. In truth he didn’t feel overly brave or noble. His shoulder daemon kept on asking him where was the sort of courage exhibited by men like Philips or Father Bilney. He shrugged this off. The subversion and degradation of his soul wasn’t worth the price of his shoulder daemon’s vision of Utopia.
It was fairly reluctant, but slowly in a soft voice and after almost an eternity of hesitation, Margaret Black began her introduction to the secret trade of book smuggling. “The first stage is our agents in Bruges or Antwerp. They source the books from printing houses. Officially the printers have to clear anything they produce with the censors of the Archbishop, but since most is now done in our language, they really couldn’t care. Then we work out the proportion of bound books to loose bundled sheets. The books cost more, but the sheets are easier to hide.”
Ned considered this first step. It seemed easy enough, a simple merchant’s transaction. You could do the same wandering through the printers’ stalls by St Paul’s. However you were extremely unlike to pick up such radical literature. Bishop Stokesley of London kept a very close eye on the few printers and sellers in the city. “So how are they secreted?”
Despite the gravity of the discussion, Mistress Black’s impish grin returned. “That’s the easy part. In each shipment their location is spread throughout the cargo. The loose sheets can be mixed with straw and rag packing in crates or barrels. Sometimes books are hidden in false bottoms in boxes or wrapped and sealed with tar in tuns of wine or in sacks of meal or flour. More commonly they are put in mislabelled barrels and the bills of lading are altered. Usually all vessels have secret compartments where such items are stored. You would have to take the ship apart to find them.”
To Ned it sounded very thorough and he supposed that it must be, considering the large number of heretical books he had seen at the university and the Inns of Court. But there must still be flaws since More and the bishops had still managed to seize and burn a cart load of texts. “That’s the transport of the books. How do they leave the ship?”
At this next question Meg Black pursed her lips and frowned pensively. Ned had suspected this was the area of most risk. “Well, as I said this ship is to sail to Bristol and then Dublin. Before that it has three official ports of call, Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth. At each of those towns we have agents who arrange a number of other quiet stops along the south coast at beaches and inlets for unloading cargo.”
Ned had heard of the reputation of the coastline stretching from the Isle of Wight to the wild country of Cornwall. According to the writs he had seen in courts, it was the bane of the Exchequer, Chancery and the King’s Bench, with the locals considering themselves exempt from the laws that governed the paying of taxes and levy’s that held at least nominal sway in the rest of the kingdom. “Alright. Then how do you arrange that?”
“Well we have correspondence with some of those local agents letting them know when to expect a shipment. Others are acquaintances of Albrecht’s or Joachim’s and are contacted at the ports as a part of normal business. A few are port Reeves, so that makes it easier.”
From her report almost every merchant in the realm had to be involved in some form of smuggling. Of course that meant the more involved they were in the trade, the greater risk of betrayal. In these decadent times the path of the informer was laid with silver.
“What if one of your letters or agents is taken, or turned in?” he asked.
“We’re prepared for that.” Meg Black had the most smugly, satisfied grin on her face that he’d yet seen.
“The letters are in a simple cipher. Most of the local fishermen and villagers on the coast support the smuggling trade and keep a watch out for informers or customs men. Occasionally a shipment is seized, but since most of the coastal customs men are paid off, we can usually get the cargo back.”
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