The Cardinal's Angels (Red Ned Tudor Mysteries)

by Gregory House

  In the midst of High Street there was a prominent island, well placed for public view. It was the same in all towns and villages in the realm. Commonly it was the site of proclamations and punishment, where the delivery of justice could be seen by all as a warning against breaches of the law, both local and those of the King’s Majesty. Tower Hill was by far the most popular where thousands could watch the punishment of traitors and murderers bearing public witness to the proper ordering of the realm.

  Here in Southwark the administration of the law was no less visible, or any more merciful. Common misdemeanours received a sentence of pillorying or being locked in a pair of stocks for a given period ranging from a day to a week. The miscreant provided an endless source of amusement for the community and served as an impromptu target for children, either for taunts or missiles, depending on their humour. The cage swinging nearby was another matter. It was meant for the incarceration of highwaymen and outlaws captured on the Surrey roads on the way to London.

  The cage wasn’t empty. It was difficult to see if the emaciated figure was still alive or not, but how a soul that wasted still survived was either a miracle or a curse.

  At the market square it wasn’t the rotted figure that gained Ned’s wide eyed attention, but rather the man on the horse next to it. He was in his late twenties and of middling height and solid build. His fleshy face was dominated by a trimmed light brown beard and watery grey eyes, and to Ned he was very familiar. George Cavendish, a gentleman of the household of Cardinal Wolsey. The Lord Chancellor’s servant frequently delivered messages from his master to the Inns of Court and was currently scowling at a portly figure in the gown and fur collar of a lawyer, a man esteemed in the title of Commissioner and Justice of Peace for the township of Southwark, Master William Overton. He was a gentleman renowned throughout Surrey for three particular attributes, firstly an amazing shortness of sight, secondly a rigid obedience to common rights and privileges, and lastly a reputation for being the most venal judge in the entire County. Right now he was puffed up in all his legal dignity and Cavendish wasn’t happy.

  “Sirrah, I tell ye, unless yea have a warrant from the Lord Chancellor, I’ll not allow yea to disturb the good folk of Southwark with yea hubbub and mischief!”

  “And I tell you Justice Overton, it is essential for the safety of the Realm that you obey the Lord Chancellor’s commands!”

  From that choleric demand and the reddish colour of Cavendish, Ned got the impression this discussion had been under way for some time.

  “So yea said four times already, but apart from mutterings of treason, yea have said naught of any legal writ and the good folk of Southwark will nay suffer any expense on the say so of some court waiter, no matter how fancy his dress!”

  Cavendish bent lower off his saddle and shouted back into the face of Overton. “My master is the Lord Chancellor, you paunchy beef witted measle! I’ll have you in the Tower so fast your feet ’ll still be on this side of the river!”

  After that dread insult the crowd collectively held its breath in anticipation. Justice Overton wiped the sprayed spittle from his face and focused his squint eyed glare on the Cardinal’s servant. “Your master may be Lord of the Star Chamber and an archbishop to boot, but after all the ‘amicable grants’ and taxes he’s levied on us, I’ll not call out the Watch just so as you gets to trawl the stews for your missing rent boy or a stray trull!”

  Ned smiled and relaxed. There was no doubt about it, Overton was good at leverage. For Cavendish the message behind the defiance slowly tricked past his suffused exterior and he visibly calmed down before giving a stilted reply. “My lord is generous to those deserving of his favour.”

  Ned pushed closer. He wanted to hear this. The rest of the puzzled band followed creating a ripple of complaints through the crowd, though none compared with the vile mutters of Mistress Black.

  “How generous?” came Overton’s quick response.

  Cavendish was seen to struggle with some inner demon. Ned thought he was trying to figure out how little he could get away with when it was out of his own purse. “Five angels and ten more when you bring the miscreant to me.”

  “Ten angels now an’ twenty when we find the one yea want.”

  Ned shook his head in disgust. Not even a yeoman from the shires was so easy to cozen. Cavendish was plainly unaccustomed to bargaining. He named too high a figure to begin with and signalled his desperate need. He’d have been better to start at several shillings and offer beer money as well.

  Cavendish hesitated a moment and gave a reluctant nod. Overton may be as blind as a bat, but he had a canny nose able to scent the collapse of an opponent. In an instant the Commissioner of Peace was all smiles and compliance before turning to his left and bellowing out a ringing command. “Dewberry, where art yea, y’ tosspotting malt worm? Get yea lads here!”

  The crowd parted and a large stout figure slowly lumbered into view. If he’d been a foot or so taller he would have been formidably impressive, that’s if the barrel like shape didn’t also wobble alarmingly at each heavy step. Eventually the figure came to a quivering halt before Overton and delivered an irregular salute that wavered beside a large red florid nose. “Constable Dewberry as requ’sted!”

  From Cavendish’s bulging eyes and open jaw, Ned surmised that the cardinal’s servant mustn’t have visited Southwark before. Constable Dewberry was a legend here. His slow ponderous pace was much appreciated by the nips and foisters who stole purses and pilfered from stalls while his loudly ringing tones calling the ‘all’s well’ at night could also guarantee the lack of any sneak thief or lurking ambush along which ever lane he made his stately progress, since it gave them sufficient warning to settle their business and be elsewhere. Then just as a precaution if you didn’t hear him, he was easily identified by an old style helm with enormous plumes, left over from as he claimed his days serving the King’s father in his fight for the throne.

  “Constable, have yea summoned yea stout lads an’ honest yeoman, the Southwark Watch?” Overton made the question ring with potent promise.

  The redoubtable constable gave another trembling salute before his bass roar shook the crowd. “Southwark Watch, rally!”

  With a command like that, one would expect a smart lot to strut out through the crowd, trained and drilled to the perfection portrayed by the London Ward Musters, all glittering armour and polished pikes. Or perhaps they might imitate the precision step and matching uniforms of the yeoman of the King’s Guards. After that summons you could tell that’s what Cavendish was expecting. He was craning his head this way and that seeking out the ‘stout fellows and honest yeoman’ of this borough.

  Ned gave a quick glance around the crowd. He could tell what they were waiting for. All of them were watching the Lord Chancellor’s servant with a keen anticipation, the sort that gathers to enjoy the street theatre of a London brawl.

  Eventually a collection of men pushed their way through and Cavendish, in the fine tradition of the gulled yokel, switched his even more wide eyed startled glare betwixt the motley band and their proud as punch commander. “What is…this?”

  “This be the Watch sir! A fine body o’ men if’n I may says so!”

  It was plain that Cavendish was bursting to say otherwise as the keepers of the peace of Southwark shuffled into a very irregular rank. “Is…is this all of them?” You could hear the incredulity turning Cavendish’s manly bellow into a shrill plea.

  “Nay sir, o’ course n’t.” Constable Dewberry lifted up a large hand and began to tick off absent watchmen. “Watkins is off buryin’ his dear old gran. Fielder ’s havin’ a tooth pulled by the barber at Groat Street. Thompson’s been pressed for the King’s service. Burton’s got a dose o’ the French pox. Clarke got knifed in the brawl yesterday eve. Aitken’s in the Clink for debt, and Fenton’s leg aches in the damp so he only comes out in the summer m’lord!”

  Cavendish made a quick mental calculation but still seemed most unsatisfied. He
scowled and clenched his fist. “By your muster roll you are paid for twenty. With the ones here you’re still several men short. Where are they?”

  That clever bit of deduction had old Constable Dewberry sweating for a moment, then he snapped off another wavering salute and shot back as fast as anything. “The others m’lord, are down south a lookin’ for Black Will the highwayman, a dreadful murderer an’ felon. Justice Overton ‘as the writ an’ warrant m’lord!”

  The justice of Southwark nodded furiously in agreement, while Cavendish had the look of a man who’d sucked a particularly sour plum. Giving a pained sigh he rode over to inspect his new troops. “This man has only one arm!”

  “Aye m’lord but he fights wit’ the tuther.”

  The aforementioned ‘good limb’ looked barely strong enough to lift a firkin. The High Street audience began to chuckle.

  “Constable what about that one? He’s…he’s…sweet Jesu…scratching his cods!”

  The fellow singled out by the wavering finger wasn’t so much giving his codpiece a friendly contemplative scratch as most common fellows do to dislodge the fleas. Not so, his hand was buried up to the wrist within the said apparel, where he appeared to be engaged in a life and death struggle with a ferret…oh yes and drooling.

  Cavendish grimaced and forbore to mention this latter particular to the attentive audience.

  “Oh don’t yea mind Dylan. Only happens when’s the sheep come into town m’lord.”

  The crowd howled with laughter at that, though the Lord Chancellor’s servant looked rather more distressed at the answer. Instead he rallied and pushed onto the next watchman. “What about this fellow Constable? Isn’t he blind?”

  “Only during the day m’lord. At night he sees like an owl.”

  Ned smiled. He didn’t think Sightless Sam saw past his nose except when a tankard was at his lips.

  As for Cavendish, he just shook his head continuing along the line. “And this lopped fellow? How in the name of the blessed Jesus can he serve?”

  The stout yeoman in question could see and possessed both arms, though only one hand. The other terminated in an iron hook. If only it was so small an affliction then maybe his inclusion wouldn’t be quite so questionable. However he also lacked both ears, a nose and a leg from the knee. As Ned knew, the thumping echo of the wooden stump and crutch at night told any potential foister that he needn’t speed his escape to more than a casual saunter.

  “Why’s m’lord, that’s me corporal, Dick Benbow. The fellow’s a veteran o’ the wars’ agin the Turk. Nay man in England ‘as slain more musselmen than he ‘as, an’ suffered for it m’lord!”

  Ned shoved his hand into his mouth to stop the surging howls of laughter. He knew for a fact old Benbow there had never been further than Gravesend, and his grievous injuries were inflicted as a recipient of the King’s justice.

  Cavendish finished his inspection and morosely shook his head. The Southwark Watch had clearly come up short in his estimation. Ned certainly understood Cavendish’s dismay. Only when he was unconscious and disarmed could this ‘fine body of men’ have managed to ‘capture’ Red Ned. In a last flare of waning hope, the Lord Chancellor’s servant turned to the gathered crowd. “Is there any man with his heart brimming with loyalty to serve His Sovereign Majesty and crush treason?”

  In Southwark it was a forlorn cry indeed. Ned spun around to see if any of the audience were crack brained enough to volunteer and his blood froze solid. Then he boldly stepped forward and called out. “Ho sir. I and my retainers will join you! As any good Englishmen we cannot stomach treason to our noble king!”

  All three of his companions looked stricken as if he’d gone Bedlamite mad. They’d have melded into the crowd but as happens in such gatherings, the audience as one instinctively stepped back leaving a clear circle of space. Ned could only imagine what Mistress Black must have been muttering as he strode up to the Lord Chancellor’s servant.

  Master Cavendish on the other hand treated Ned’s arrival as the second coming. He even dismounted and gave him a welcoming clap on the shoulder. “It does my heart good to see such love of my master and our Sovereign lord!”

  Not surprising really. Between Ned, Gruesome Roger and Rob Black they had more physical presence than all of the Watch combined. Cavendish was in raptures. He must have been feeling a right fool for having been taken in by Master Overton.

  Ned’s companions stood in a very wary cluster. As for Mistress Back, it was best not to consider what was being planned behind those fiery blue grey eyes but no doubt as his daemons suggested, they promised pain and retribution. Lots of it!

  “Well Master Cavendish, what’s our duty? How can we assist our Sovereign’s right hand?”

  “Ahh Master...?”

  “Thomas. Thomas Fischer of Rotherhithe. These are my retainers, Roger and Robert, along with my cousin Margaret. We’re to Temple Bar for my family’s affairs.” Ned gave out the lie with accustomed ease.

  Cavendish was so eager for help he didn’t even twitch, but pulled Ned closer. “There is a treasonous plot involving some stew sweepings from Southwark. They’re involved in the murder of John Smeaton, a trusted servant of the Lord Chancellor, who was on a matter of the King’s interest. The scum are believed to be plotting further mischief. We must find them!”

  Ned sadly shook his head in plain disbelief. “These are decayed times we live in. Who’re we searching for?” This was one of the reasons for Ned’s conversion from stealth to openness. They needed current information.

  “One calls himself Red Ned, some cozener from the baiting pits and dicing tables. Another is his punk, a herb dabbler from Greyfriars, while the third is said to be a bearded northerner.”

  That was a very interesting list. The first two were sort of correct, but a bearded Northerner? Who was he?

  “Where do we find them and what descriptions do we have?” Ned shot back the question in a brisk fashion.

  Cavendish gave his trimmed beard a thoughtful rub before replying. “As to where they are,” Cavendish gave a shrug and a scowl, “Red Ned escaped from the Clink. He couldn’t have got far. The bridge is guarded and the river has several of my master the Lord Chancellor’s barges patrolling. The miscreant has to be here, hiding amongst the Southwark scourings. As to a description, well he’s a traitor so not doubt has a mean close eyed look and is as deformed as his rotted soul.”

  Ned smiled and nodded knowingly. This was getting better with each word. “It must be so. As we know the inner man is reflected in the physical features. It was so with that vile usurper, Richard of Gloucester. So it is with every mean villain, warped in face and twisted of limb.”

  Cavendish broke out into a wide smile and shook Ned’s hand, slipping across a small clinking purse. “I am blessed with good fortune! A man of modern learning! Can I beg you to lead the search from here to Lambeth Palace? I’ll partner your men with the Watch for they look a shifty lot, more likely to sell their mothers than find a traitor! I fear I have to stay here in case the fiend tries to sneak out of Southwark. My men will ring the borough. If you’ve need, get that fat constable to sound his horn.”

  Ned gave what he hoped was an elegant bow, flourishing Gulping Jemmy’s borrowed cloak in a wide swirl mainly to hide his grin. “Sir, it is an honour to serve. I would shed my life’s blood to suppress treason.”

  He strutted back to his friends and leant towards a clearly steaming Mistress Black. “Now, now, Mistress Vixen. Hold your loving hand. We’ve just joined the hunt for the evil Red Ned, or else Canting Michael over there in the crowd will claim us for Suffolk!”

  Mistress Black frowned darkly but withheld any blow, while Rob and Roger who’d been listening in just gave accepting shrugs and followed him back to his new command.

  “Constable Dewberry!”

  The watchman in question attempted to draw his bulk into a more alert stance. It didn’t make much difference. “Sir!”

  “As you no doubt over heard, Master Cavendi
sh has requested I lead you in this venture. Know that I mean to rely on your vast experience in this. Where would be the best place to start? I was thinking of perhaps St Mary Overie and its row of stews and taverns.” Ned gave the purse in his hand a discrete jingle.

  Constable Dewberry’s hand wobbled up for another salute. Any fool who’d spent time in Southwark would also know of the good constables’ other main attribute, his ready recognition of ‘gifts’. “Aye sir, that be the best place!”

  So with Ned and company in the lead, they proceeded to the Bankside shore under the full, if halting, escort of Southwark’s infamous Watch, and from what Ned could see, his potential nemesis Canting Michael was left to prowl the fringe of High Street unable to pounce until Cavendish’s men moved off. Ned gave a heartfelt prayer that the Lord Chancellor’s servant was planning on a long stay.

  Being across the river, Southwark was not under the jurisdiction of the London authorities, and to vex them even more, it was also made up of a patchwork of Liberties under the direct claim of the Church. The Bishop of Winchester had his manor nearby, as did the Archbishop of Canterbury, his London abode–Lambeth Palace. Neither of those two senior prelates were friends of Cardinal Wolsey who owned the sumptuous palace across the river at York Place and in his current difficult circumstance, it was a prudent move on Cavendish’s part not to antagonise them.

  If one also counted the competing court factions, that lent an extra edge of peril. The Howard clan had Norfolk House opposite Lambeth Palace and Suffolk had a large manor nearby. So while this small patch was in theory packed with unfriendly forces, their cheek by jowl placement nullified the threats, or so Ned hoped.