What a poor fool to end up here in the city, dead.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Monday 5th February
I have no idea what time it was, but when I woke, it was daylight again, and I rose stiffly, frozen to the core, my shoulder a throbbing concentration of pain. Someone had thrown a blanket over me, and at least lying where I had meant that I had been out of the worst of the wind. Now, as I stood and stared over the remains of the bridge, I could see that the enemy had gone. Only the bodies remained lying in the dirt, with many gouges to show where the cannons’ shot had left their marks.
A physician was moving about the injured, averting his face from the more noisome wounds. He was used to a shilling a day in his expensive consulting rooms, I thought, and this was more a civic duty than a profitable task. Still, when he saw me, he came happily enough, thinking that at least I wouldn’t spout blood at him. He passed his hands over my arms, which made me moan, and then touched my back, which made me whimper. I was one enormous bruise. However, it was when he put a hand to my shoulder that I yelped like an injured mastiff. He chuckled to himself, and I watched as he put his fingers on something. I could see it from the corner of my eye, but, I confess, terror had distracted me. Apparently, when I was flung through the air in the dark, I had been struck by a large splinter of wood, which had apparently punctured me as effectively as a poignard. He yanked it free and held it before me proudly. I took it and pushed it into my purse. It took a lot of effort. I was finding concentration difficult.
‘Well, soldier. I do not blame you for wanting to keep that as a memento of your service this night,’ he said with a big smile.
‘Yes, I hrfurdle,’ I said. I could have laughed at the sight of his suddenly perplexed expression, and as I wondered why on earth my tongue felt so large, I very slowly and gently collapsed at his feet.
I was taken away, apparently. The physician, for all his squeamishness in the presence of so much injury, was a good man, and had forged some close friendships with the fellows at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. I was borne there on a carriage, I learned. Later, I would recall being rattled and jolted, along with five men who were likewise incapacitated, although by the time we arrived there we were only four. One poor fellow, who looked only about sixteen summers old, barely of an age to grow more than a puppy’s down on his upper lip and chin, had expired on the way. I saw them lift him up and set him on the ground outside the main hospital next to seven other figures.
That was a salutary sight. I was determined at once that I would not be added to their number.
I was walked inside, and it was a relief to be installed on a pallet inside the main hall. After my experience of receiving cannon shot, I was given to musing about the weight of wood and rock above me. The ceiling was far overhead, and I thought to myself that the rafters looked dangerous there, and that if they were to fall on me, I would be squashed as flat as a mosquito when a hand catches it. There would be no need to worry about a splinter in the shoulder if that lot ended up on my head. And with that reassuring thought, I sank into the darkness again.
Later, I felt gentle hands washing my face and shoulder. A poultice of some sort was smothered over the wound at my shoulder, and a white-hot agony seemed to thrust into it like a lance, but it lasted only moments, and then I was able to breathe again. However, from that moment I have only fleeting memories of my stay in the hospital. I slept, I woke, I was washed and patted like a faithful hound, and then I slept again.
Pre-dawn Tuesday 6th
I finally woke in the night-time with a raging thirst and a hunger that was all-encompassing. In the previous day, I had eaten but a snack or two with the men, and a little light ale to wash it down. The periods between the attacks had been all too brief for more than that, and now I was desperate. A helpful passer-by saw my distress and fetched me a small bottle of ale and a hunk of bread with a little cold meat, which I wolfed down, and then lay back with a sigh of relief. I could feel the cold ale passing down my gullet and into my belly, where it sat like a lump of lead.
Patting myself, I soon determined that the only real injury was the hole in my shoulder. The rest of me was sore and bruised, but that was only to be expected after my unexpected flight through the air. I was fortunate to have landed on something fairly soft, I thought.
The fact that I was in the hospital was a relief, too. No matter who might be hunting for me, I was surely safe here, I thought. John Blount and his two companions were unlikely to think of looking for me here, and so too were the bishop and his companion. No, being here, in a bed, was a great method of concealment. All I needed to do was wait here, heal myself while all the dangerous fighting was going on, and then, when it was safe enough, flee the hospital and London together, and make my way to safety.
Whitstable. It wasn’t the sort of place I would have looked upon as a haven at any other time. In fact, I had cordially detested it. The smells would stay with me forever, I knew – salted fish and the stench of the tannery, the odour of dogshit.
Then something happened to drive all thoughts of Whitstable from my mind. I heard tramping feet, and I looked up to find myself staring at Henry Roscard.
He was sauntering along between the beds, glancing at all the injured men with a half-smile on his face, rubbing one hand with the other like a man with an ache or the beginning of arthritis.
I looked away hurriedly and rolled uncomfortably from my bed. In Christ’s name, that hurt! Every muscle, every tendon was complaining fit to hobble me. It shows how painful it was by the fact that I didn’t think of the bruises on my head for once.
Roscard was looking for me, and I didn’t want to see him. Not just now. I had a very unpleasant vision in my mind of the result of a talk with him. All I could see was two options: one in which I was being stretched on the rack; the second in which I was lying in a mess at the side of a road, with a puncture mark in my breast like the one that David from Exeter had won for himself. But David could have had no idea that Henry Roscard was going to find him and kill him.
The events of that day seemed clear enough to me now. I had thought it likely that John Blount had bludgeoned me at the gate, but he seemed to have no reason to hurt me. Instead, could it have been Henry? Ann had said she thought not, but could he have come along the alley and surprised me? He could have sprung out from the gate when I opened it, clubbed me, and then run to David and killed him. Poor fellow: David had only been a messenger. Perhaps even an unwitting one. Gardiner had given me a purse; what if the same had happened to poor David? He might have had no idea he was carrying a message, too. But perhaps not. His expression, on seeing his wife, seemed to show that he had urgent business.
Whether he had known or not, he died for bringing that silly scrap of parchment. Then Henry had gone to the tavern’s door to make enough noise so that all would know he had been outside with me. By chance, I had woken and fled when he slammed the door. No doubt, if I had not woken, Henry would have told everyone that he saw me kill the lad, and then he knocked me down before calling the hue and cry. The posse would have seen me there with my dagger drawn and made the obvious connection: dead man on the floor, unknown purse-pilferer with knife in hand – easy. Thanks, Master Roscard, and goodbye, poor Jack.
Except they hadn’t got me.
Then I guessed why he was rubbing his hand. I remembered Gil’s body slumped at the post, and I could see clearly the white of his teeth gleaming in the pool of puke and blood. A man who punched a fellow’s mouth and head hard enough to cause that much damage would surely hurt his own fist. Roscard had killed Gil. That explained Blount’s surprise at my accusation!
It was all so clear now, in retrospect, that I was astonished I hadn’t seen it all before. How on earth could I have thought that Blount wanted me dead? It was Roscard all along. He and his masters, the Spanish, wanted the note at all costs.
I rolled up the blanket in a hurry and threw it over my shoulder, pulling my sword’s baldric over my head so it kept the b
lanket in place over my injured shoulder. Then I took a deep breath, grabbed a sleeping warrior’s hat, and strode out while pulling it straight.
Outside, it was still dark, although I felt that it must soon be clearing. The sun was due over the horizon, and I was soon going to be conspicuous if I didn’t move away. With no set destination in mind, I set off in the direction I was already pointing. Without thinking about it, I soon discovered that I was heading west, and I bent my steps towards Mark Thomasson’s house again. He owed me, I felt.
Meanwhile, I was thinking quite hard. The knock on my head must have shaken something loose, because I was finding it easier to consider things. First was Roscard.
You see, I’d heard that he was supposed to be working with the Spanish. The bishop was working with the queen, and she was determined to marry the Spaniard; that should mean that Roscard and the Spanish must be working to the same goal, surely? Yet Roscard appeared more to be working on his own. If he was with the bishop, why wasn’t he there when the prelate interrogated me? Perhaps he was, in the shadows behind, but I doubted it. No, it looked more and more to me as though the bishop and Roscard were working to different ends. Perhaps the Spaniards had offered him something – perhaps they didn’t like the bishop? Could they be trying to do something on their own account, without telling the queen? Maybe they simply did not trust the bishop. After all, the bishop’s authority would diminish considerably once the queen was married, so he might try to stop the wedding. And so they hired Roscard as a mercenary to spy on people. He wanted the message to incriminate the queen’s enemies.
That was offensive, I thought. If they were trying to plot in the kingdom, they weren’t the sort of people among whom she should marry. The sort of man who makes plans about his wife before he’s even married her, that is not the sort of man I would want for any daughter of mine. Not that I was likely to have a daughter. Not that I admitted to, anyway.
I was at Mark’s house, and I struck the door warily, like a beadle suspecting smugglers might be inside, keen to defend their brandy.
When it opened, I didn’t thrust it wide like last time.
‘Can I come in?’ I said.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The miserable old servant motioned me inside with barely a snarl of greeting. As soon as I was in, Peterkin began to rumble deep in his throat and then lower his head and step towards me.
For once, I really felt nothing in the way of fear. I glared at him without blinking. ‘What? If you want to end up looking like a mastiff who’s run into a wall, just try your luck, you great lummock. Otherwise, belt up!’
‘There is, um, no need to be like that. He’s perfectly friendly,’ Mark said, and passed me a jug and goblet.
I filled it. I had need of it.
‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
‘What was in the parchment you gave me for Atwood?’
Mark did me the honour of looking embarrassed. ‘Ah, so you noticed?’
Jonah cackled in the background. ‘Only a blind fool wouldn’t have spotted your writing!’
‘Be silent!’ Mark said with a scowl. ‘Go and clean the privy or something. It would make a change for you to actually do something in the house.’
‘A fine thing for you to say. You realize that makes you the fool for keeping me on while you think I do nothing?’
‘Just go, old fool!’
The door slammed, and Mark glared at his wine for a moment before tossing it down his neck. ‘Blasted old stoat.’
‘Why do you keep him?’
‘He and I are accustomed to each other. When I was a captain in the king’s army, twenty years ago, he saved me in a battle. It’s hard to let a man like that go. But in God’s name, I swear I wish I had done!’
‘The message. What did it say?’
‘What do you think it said?’
I racked my brains to remember it. The original had been shorter, and there had been little to it. ‘Suppose you tell me,’ I said threateningly. ‘It’s probably my life you’ve put in danger, after all.’
‘Not at all. With luck,’ he added with a rare flash of honesty. He saw my expression and nodded. ‘I made the same note, more or less, but addressed it to a different person. It was to be sent to Wyatt from a lady. I changed the lady.’
‘What?’
‘Try to keep up, boy,’ he said testily. ‘The message you brought me was addressed to Wyatt, the leader of the rebels, from a lady of rank in the country. If her part in this rebellion was ever to come to light, she would die. Master John Blount would be most disappointed if that were to happen. So, instead, I made it out to have been sent from another lady, whose life is forfeit anyway.’
‘What?’
‘Lady Jane Grey. Poor woman. I can feel a great deal of sorrow for her. She is such a lovely young thing, but desperately unlucky. She almost won the throne for herself, you know. That was the plot, when poor King Edward died: they were intending to arrest Mary and put Jane on the throne instead. With her English husband, that would have made everything so much easier. She would have maintained the standing of the new faith and the Church of England, and there would be no nonsense about a Spanish prince consort, the return of the old religion, ructions and rebellions, and so on. But now Mary has managed to upset all the vested interests in only a short period. And because of the attempt to give the kingdom to Lady Jane, she now languishes in the Tower. She will be executed anyway. So I made the note appear as though it had come from her.’
‘But that’s unfair!’
‘Hmm? No, it’s not fair. But it is good politics. Why, what’s the matter with you? Do you like to see women executed? You would prefer to see a second woman beheaded along with Lady Jane, would you?’
‘What? No, of course not!’
‘Then don’t be so foolish, man! Lady Jane’s cause is already lost. I for one wouldn’t seek to destroy a second. So I’ve done all I can to defend her.’
‘And you were prepared to risk my life to achieve that?’
‘I’d hardly risk my own, would I, eh? Um, if it makes you feel any happier, I did feel a qualm or two about that, but John Blount can be most persuasive on occasion.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He is the unofficial official for a lady of high standing,’ Mark said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Work it out for yourself. Now, is that all you wanted? You woke me at a damn silly hour of the morning to learn just that?’
‘Eh?’ I was still absorbing all that he had told me. ‘Oh, no. I was in the hospital after the fight on London Bridge, when I saw Roscard searching for me. I only just escaped with my life.’
‘That damned Spanish whore’s son! I wish we could remove him as easily. If only a note could work to see him destroyed, too.’
I didn’t feel comfortable in Mark’s house. The old servant seemed to watch me in the same way that a beadle would, suspecting that at any moment a significant portion of Mark’s property might disappear. Which was foolish. Nothing he had was all that portable, except for some cheap trinkets that I wouldn’t have looked at, especially now I didn’t know where to take them to fence them. Not since I couldn’t go to Bill any more.
However, Bill might be interested to see me. Especially since I had my new wound. That would probably excite Moll as much as any other woman. They always like these proofs of courage and valour. I didn’t necessarily need to tell her I’d been cowering behind a barricade at the time I was hit. And I could show her my splinter. I pulled it from my purse and studied it now.
It was a horrible piece of wood, about three inches long and almost triangular in section. The thing must have been ripped from the corner of a large baulk of wood. I moved my shoulder to remind myself of the injury, and I could feel the prickles of sweat starting as the pain stabbed again. There was a nasty suspicion at the back of my mind that the injury would not be sufficient to keep me from the barricades again, but I was determined to avoid them if at all possible. Stan
ding there and waiting for other men to fire their guns at me was not my idea of a pleasant afternoon or evening. No, in preference I would keep my head down, well out of the way, and try to keep to the safer areas of the city. Not that many would be safe if the rebels broke in. That was not an event I was happy to consider. It would bode ill for any who had carried arms against them, and who might be considered to have injured or killed their companions.
No, I didn’t like that thought at all.
Still, Moll might just look at me in a different light, now that I had this proof of my valour. If Bill didn’t like it, well, I was coming to think I didn’t like him much either. He was useful, but now, with luck, my life was in less peril than it had been. And Bill’s churlish attitude towards me in my hour of need would affect Moll. I’d see that in her face.
I decided I would test her feelings.
I would go back.
TWENTY-NINE
It was the second hour of the morning by the time I reached the house, I’d guess. The sun was high enough to throw some of her light along the streets facing south, and I could feel a little of her insipid heat as I hurried down the alleys and lanes towards the place I had called home for such a short time.
I entered the chamber where Atwood and his men had appeared that fateful night, and there I found the place deserted. It was a relief, if I’m honest. If Bill had been there, I’m not sure what I would have had to say to him. As it was, I found myself in the chamber with a series of rolled-up palliasses and stored blankets, while my companions were all out, no doubt trying to win the purses of the panicky London mob. There were so many people there who would be carrying all their money on them, preparing for disaster and stocking up on essentials, that it was tempting to go out and try my own luck. However, the thought of bumping into Roscard again, or the bishop’s men, or Blount – or, worse, Atwood – was enough to make me sit down on a stool. After the exertions of the day before last, the pain of my wound and the lack of sleep last night, I was exhausted, and I thought I would close my eyes for a moment.
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