A Missed Murder

by Michael Jecks

Outside, there was no sign of Humfrie. I didn’t care. I was past worrying about purses of gold, assassins, murderers and thieves. Instead, I went with Agnis to a trough and washed my hands carefully. There was a strip of linen in a corner, and I washed that, too, before binding my hand in it. The cool felt good.

  ‘I’m going home,’ I said.

  ‘What of the Spaniards?’

  ‘Oh.’ I had forgotten all about them in the madness of the last hours.

  ‘You had better come back with me,’ she said. ‘Although it means you have ruined all Blount’s plans.’

  ‘What plans?’

  ‘He wanted Michol dead, because that would injure the French plans to disrupt the Queen’s succession. If the Queen were to die any time soon, that would leave everything up in the air, wouldn’t it?’

  I smiled. ‘There’s no need to worry about that now. The Queen has given birth to a big healthy boy – didn’t you know?’

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t hear what they were all talking about in there. They were all saying that she hasn’t. The announcement was a mistake.’

  ‘All the bells, the bonfires …’ I said weakly.

  ‘Mean nothing,’ she said. ‘There is no child. The men in there were saying she gave birth to a monkey, or that she has been trying to find a child to take as her own, but there is no doubt that she has no son.’

  ‘How could the news have been so widely circulated, then?’ I scoffed.

  ‘What, that she had given birth? A foolish serving maid? A groom with more mouth than sense? Idiots can spread lies easily enough. The main point is that we need to get to Michol quickly. Blount will be very disappointed if we don’t.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said miserably. My hand hurt, and I was in need of some brandy or strong wine. ‘I need to speak to Humfrie, then. Make sure that he is with me when I do it.’

  ‘Why? Do you feel lonely?’ she laughed. ‘You can do it yourself, can’t you? He’s only one man. You’ve done it before, haven’t you?’

  It was a statement, not a question. ‘I didn’t realize you knew what I did for Blount.’

  ‘He had to explain things so I understood the seriousness of his instructions,’ she said.

  And I had thought her only a pretty face and exceptional top-carriage.

  ‘We have the rest of today to plan,’ she said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Now that news of the baby is spread all over the city, there is an incentive for the French to try to do harm to the Queen, isn’t there? If they can get to her and kill her, what will happen to the succession? They could impose Mary Queen of the Scots on us, and then they would march into London and take over everything. Do you want that?’

  ‘Well, no!’

  ‘Then we must go and do Blount’s bidding while we still have time. It’s the only way to protect the Queen, isn’t it?’

  Thus it was that I found myself a few hours later clad in a new suit of clothes that barely fitted me. Agnis had left me to go and fetch some food for us while I changed into her husband’s old clothes, and on her return we ate cheese and bread with sour ale. Once she had taken a good look at my hand (now washed), she declared it merely bruised. I forebore to mention that she should try having Mal try to squash it into the cobbles if she thought it so little a thing. I doubt she would have cared. She would probably have laughed.

  Later, she took me down the ladders and led the way to a place where, so she said, we would be likely to find Michol and his friends.

  It was a wet evening. Since my excitement over the cesspit, I had felt myself caught in the mechanism of some gigantic machine from which I could not escape. No matter where I turned, whether it was to try to run from the city or to attempt to hide myself, or even perhaps go to speak to Blount and explain myself, it was plain enough that I could do nothing in safety. I was trapped. Events were moving too quickly for me. Mal was not dead, from the snoring he had emitted when we left him at the cesspit; the Spaniards were sure to want to find me and introduce me to Spanish steel since I hadn’t given them news about Luys, or Diego, whoever he was; the Queen would be angry with me since I had killed Jeffry, although not intentionally; and now I was on my way with Agnis, for whom my earlier lust had significantly waned now that I had discovered she was a dangerous harpy who could happily contemplate cutting a man’s throat. If she was so keen on the idea, I felt, she could go ahead with the commission herself. I wanted nothing to do with it. And now I had even mislaid Humfrie.

  He had been at the tavern, but as so often happened, now that I needed him, I had no idea where to find him. He fled before I came out with Agnis. And although there were a number of low taverns and alehouses where I would probably be able to locate him, Agnis was determined to crack on with killing Michol.

  ‘Come along!’ she snapped when I suggested a small detour to look for Humfrie. ‘You don’t need him, do you? What, do you seek a wet nurse? All you have to do is kill the man. You have done so before.’

  She was convinced that I was a crazed murderer, you see. She plainly thought that I was as keen on the idea of slaughtering this fellow as she was. It is curious: only a little earlier today I had thought her appealing. Now that reaction gave me pause for thought. I had been, more or less, a carefree, happy man, up until the moment I met this woman, and now my life was sliding towards an uncertain future that could be potentially short and very painful.

  I slipped on a wet cobblestone and cursed without feeling. For a good, mouth-filling curse, I need anger or at least resentment. Just now all I felt was misery. The rain was a thin drizzle, but it seemed to soak into my clothing like a mole burrowing into a field. I already smelled like a wet dog, and I hunched my back as a rivulet of water ran down my spine. My hat was sodden, and the felt was floppy, half concealing my face. Really, I must have looked pathetic, like some yokel visiting the city. Only, instead of staring about with wide-eyed awe like a peasant from the country, I was merely wretched.

  ‘I think you must be very brave,’ she said as we passed into a lane. ‘It makes me very excited.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  Her breast was rising and falling like a sea in a storm, and she licked her lips. Suddenly, I understood her. The mad trollop thought that rattling my cods would be fun, once my hands were bloody!

  I have known some mad bitches in my time, but it never occurred to me that Agnis could be one like this. It was entirely out of her apparent character to be so … well, I can understand women falling for me. It’s very common, in fact. But this self-assured woman? I was surprised. Let’s leave it at that.

  Of course, the main problem just then was that I would have had trouble raising a smile, let alone anything else. The thought of having to go and kill a man in order to be rewarded with a night of passion was enough to turn my stomach, even if the thought of murdering the fellow wasn’t.

  She stepped closer. I could see her bodice heaving. It was all I could do not to turn and flee. But I stood my ground. It took all my resolve, but I remained rooted to the spot, and when she slipped her hands around my neck and pulled me down towards her, I felt I had to comply.

  I could feel her breath, hot and smelling of something spicy, on my mouth, and then her lips were on mine, and I felt them pushing with a sweet insistence, and at the same time there was the delight of feeling her breasts flattening against me, and her groin rubbing against mine. Scared as I was, there was no way to stop my codpiece from making her effect on me obvious. She pulled away, arms still about my neck, and leaned back, her groin going like a dancer’s in a vaulting school. Bawdy houses always had one or two wenches who could dance lewdly, and Mistress Agnis could have taught them plenty. I could feel the blood rushing, and it wasn’t just to my face.

  She smiled at my confusion. ‘Later, Jack,’ she murmured, and leaned in to kiss me again, before drawing away and pulling me by the hand after her up the road.

  I was flustered, I confess. I had little time to think about where we were going. Mostly, my mind was fill
ed with other thoughts, and while it’s true that a woman’s desire for a man based on his desire to exterminate another did not leave me filled with enthusiasm for coupling with her, still, it had to be said that her soft lips had tasted sweet, and my mind could not quite lose the feeling that I would like to have remained kissing her a little longer.

  There was a crossing over a broad road, and I suddenly realized that we were down past the bridge, and heading nearer the Thames.

  ‘Where are—’

  She cut me off rather curtly. ‘Before you tried to dive into the cesspit, I had found some men in an alehouse along the lane. I spoke to some of them and they told me where we may find Michol tonight. He’s up here, near the river, at the sign of the Mermaid.’

  I stopped dead in the street. ‘Mermaid?’

  ‘Yes. What of it?’

  I knew of the Mermaid. There are many different places to go and get drunk or to buy a woman’s companionship for a while. The good ones are expensive, and the women young and beautiful; some are good, and the women clean; some are tatty, and the women acceptable. Others, like the Mermaid, are places where the drink is cheap, the women available for little investment, and where a man might easily lose more than just his purse.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, and I hoped she didn’t hear the trembling in my voice.

  The biggest and best inns are mostly outside the city walls. There are several down south of the bridge, some on the roads out east from Aldgate, so I hear, and others dotted all about London. It’s easy to see why. Inns take up a lot of space, with the need for stabling, chambers for guests to sleep, and a yard for wagons and carts. There are such places in London, but it’s less costly for hosts to set up their establishments outside the town, where they can offer speedy transport into the city, but where visitors can leave wagons and mounts stabled more cheaply than in the city itself.

  The Mermaid, down near the Walbrook, was one of those rare places where anyone could drop in and stay the night for remarkably little, but the true cost would appear later, when the guest discovered that his pocket had been lightened, or possibly wouldn’t wake at all. It was a grim little inn, with three storeys set behind a small cobbled yard. A stable allowed space for, at a push, six horses of poor quality. A well-bred mount would never deign to enter. The stablemen were experts at spotting good horseflesh, and I have no doubt many a quality mare ended up in another man’s hands; poorer-quality mounts could always become steaks.

  I once met a trader from Faversham who stayed at the inn almost a whole night. He was asleep in his bed, when three men entered. He was terrified lest they would set about him and injure him, but instead they all rolled themselves on to the same bed and began to snore. The host of the inn had decided that since only one man was making use of the bedchamber, he could squeeze in a few more. My friend left in high dudgeon, his mood not improved by the fact that he had paid in advance – always an error, as I will tell any visitor who cares to listen.

  Outside the inn a large mermaid was painted on to the white walls. She looked decidedly raddled, to my mind. The artist had made much of her upper attractions, but his depiction of her lower portions seemed to have been painted from memory of a six-week-dead salmon. The scales looked dull and rancid. It was an appropriate image for the place: a creature that had suffered humiliation, degradation and brutality, from the look of her, although none of these could prepare her for her arrival here.

  Agnis took my hand and led me to a doorway. I was glad, because it was out of the rain, and I had no wish to be any wetter than I already was. In the doorway she put her hand on my shoulder, and I thought she was going to kiss me again. I admit, I was nothing loath, and puckered in preparation, only to see that she was staring at the inn, not at me. She reached in under her skirts at her belly, and seemed to wriggle a bit. Soon her hand came back, and it gripped a nasty-looking thing.

  ‘By ’is wounds, what on—’

  She silenced me with a glare and passed the thing to my hand, slipping a key into my other hand as she did so. ‘Hush! This is the weapon which John Blount wishes you to use against the man. Michol must die, so you have to loose this at him.’

  ‘But what is it?’ I demanded plaintively.

  ‘It is a gun. A wheel-lock pistol. Have you not used one before?’ she asked, and I could see that she was perplexed.

  ‘Not like this,’ I said defensively. It was a curious weapon. It was like a squashed triangle from the side. There was a barrel at one end, and at the other, I supposed, was the handle, made of wood, with a bulbous pommel, in case one shot was not adequate and the assassin needed to bludgeon his victim instead. In the middle was a circular lump of metal, with a dog, in whose teeth was a lump of shiny rock.

  ‘You wind up the spring with this,’ she said, passing me a small spanner. ‘When you see him, push the dog on to the cog there, press the trigger, and the cog will spin, striking sparks from the rock in the dog’s teeth. Then it will go off.’

  I had already taken an intense dislike to this thing. ‘I don’t want this!’

  ‘It will make a lot of noise, but don’t worry about that. It will scare everyone away, and you can escape back the way we came,’ she said.

  I pulled a grimace. Utterly pointless, for she ignored me, but it made me feel better. ‘Are you sure?’

  She said nothing, but the glance she gave me was freezing. It was the sort of look I’d expect a shepherd to give on finding his dog with a lamb-bone in his mouth. I tried to smile, but it was obvious that she was more than a little disappointed in me.

  ‘Get as close as you can,’ she said. ‘Point it, loose it, and run away. That is all.’

  ‘Will he have men with him?’

  ‘When you see him come out, cross the road to him,’ she said. ‘Put the dog down ready, point it, loose it, and run.’

  It was all she would say, as though she was trying to inspire me to courage by repetition. Not that it would work with me, as I could have told her. I was already far too alarmed to be able to remember anything. Put the dog down, my arse!

  She slipped away, and I saw her slight figure crossing the road like a sliver of shadow. If she was a professional assassin herself, she could hardly be better. A faint glimmer at a doorway showed where she was sidling along the wall of the Mermaid, and I saw her stop and peer in. She turned back to me, and then opened the door and was inside.

  There have been several times when I have been forced to wait in the dark for something to happen. Invariably, it is an uncomfortable thing to do. Standing still is irritating at best, but in the chill of evening it can be an almost intolerable experience, and when it rains as well, it is worse. Then there is the standing.

  It is all very well standing for a while, but then the body craves movement. A leg will grow uncomfortable, so one must bend it and move it. And the back begins to itch, so it is necessary to lean against a wall and rub it against the plaster, or to put a hand to it. But a slight scratch is only sufficient for a short time, and then it is necessary to try to keep still again, for any assassin will tell you that the easiest way to stand out in the dark is by merely scratching your nose. Meanwhile, your other leg is going to sleep, the first is aching, your nose is itching, it is cold, and the man who is supposed to be your target is noticeable by his prolonged absence. Standing there, I was reminded of my (short) period in the militia, protecting London during the Wyatt rebellion the previous year. There had been times like this then, too, when I spent an age standing staring into the darkness for no apparent reason, and hoping against hope that no one was going to try to attack the position while I was still on guard duty. Mind you, in those times I had the benefit of a good bonfire to keep me warm. Now I didn’t even have that.

  The darkness is a strange thing. As you look at it, it changes. One thing I have learned is not to think of ghouls or ghosts. Thinking of them will conjure them in any shadow or dimly lit doorway. You look at a darkened window and see only a pane of blackness. But look away, and you
will see a hideous face leering out at you; look at a wall, and you see a pile of rubble somehow stuck together, but if you stare too hard, soon you discern faces – distorted, horrible faces, with slack, dead jaws and goggling eyes. The darkness allows the mind to take flight and imagine all kinds of horror.

  And sometimes the horror is not so far from reality. I caught sight of a doorway farther up the street, and a flicker of a candle in a window was just enough to allow me to make out perfectly the shape of a man with long robes and a hood over his head. I blinked, and there was only an empty doorway. Like I say, the mind can conjure up the most hideous of spectacles.

  What was I doing here? I had not set out to be a murderer. I was a happy-go-lucky fellow. All I wanted was a small sum to keep body and soul together, and I would be content. But no; instead, here I was, in the dark, getting cold, and expected to murder a man I didn’t know. Where was Humfrie? He was the man for this, rather than me!

  I had taken to stamping my feet to stop them from becoming numb. My hands were as bad, too, but I dared not clap them to get them working again. Apart from anything else, I was still clutching that damned great lump of metal. It was as cold as ice, and my hands felt almost as though they were frozen to it. Perhaps it was because it was an instrument of death, I wondered. Something designed solely to assassinate men must always feel like this. It had a hook on the left side, and I thrust this through the belt inside my doublet. The barrel stuck out beside my codpiece and would have looked comical to anyone watching. Anything less comical I couldn’t imagine. I wouldn’t say it was comfortable, but at least it left my hands free. I waved them and blew on them, before taking up the gun once more.

  Turning the thing over in my hands, I studied it again. It was a clever piece of workmanship, I suppose, but so is a mill, and at least the engineer who builds a mill knows that he will help maintain life; not so the man that constructed this thing. I hefted it, and lifted it, pointing it at the far window, at the door, at the sign of the mermaid itself. There was a strange imbalance in it, I thought – a sort of wrongness. It was not comfortable in the hand. I turned it around, studying the dog, and how it moved forward. There was a sort of spring that held it down against the mechanism, I saw. When the trigger was released, the wheel would spin quickly and strike sparks from the dog, which held some golden yellow stone in its jaws. I saw a little lever in front of it; I touched it, and instantly regretted it.