Death Comes Hot

by Michael Jecks

  Peg swore under her breath and flicked a finger at the man, and I snapped at her with exasperation. ‘You have already caused me enough pain, woman! What, do you want him to whip me again? Calling him a castrated peasant and then flicking your finger at him – are you mad?’

  ‘He could have hurt us,’ she said, ‘driving his car like that in this narrow way.’

  ‘He did hurt me – when you insulted him,’ I said. My earlier view of her as an appealing mount for a bedtime gallop had dissipated somewhat with the sting of the lash. ‘By all means slander men, but do so when I am not in the area to be hurt!’

  ‘It was hardly a powerful blow,’ she said, glancing at me, and then her eyes widened a little. When I glanced down, I saw a sight to make my stomach roil. There was a slash in my jack as if a knife had drawn across it, and where it had hit, there was a stain of blood forming. I felt queasy.

  ‘Come along, if you’re coming,’ she said.

  The house was new, with bright, fresh timbers newly limewashed and the daub clean and unmarked, as yet, from men and dogs pissing against it. A jetty that can only just have passed the city rules on how high it must be, and how far it could jut out over the lane, was close to braining any man of moderate height, I thought. The rules are explicit about the height of each building’s jetty, but so often the rules are twisted by corruption. A purse of coins can persuade the hardest-hearted city official to mismeasure a house’s dimensions, after all. At least the place looked well built. Its fresh limewash made the lane brighter. It almost hurt the eyes, even on a gloomy day like this.

  ‘Wait here,’ Peg said as she knocked on the door.

  ‘Why?’

  She gave me a look that clearly as words stated, ‘Do you ever use your brain?’ before saying, ‘Because, lummox, she is not expecting you. Look at you! A man with a gun and sword? What do you expect her to think? I heard you talking to Piers. When she hears you are come from her husband, a man who kills others for a living, a man who snips off ears or noses, who beheads, hangs and burns to death, who quarters his victims and castrates them in public, do you think she will welcome you with open arms?’

  Well, putting it like that, it was a cause for thought, I realized.

  ‘I’m going in there to ask her to give you a fair hearing. She will listen to you, and tell you whether she is prepared to give up her boy or not. Does that not sound fair?’

  I could hardly argue with her logic. Nodding, I leaned against the wall, rubbing my sore shoulder as she slipped inside. My shoulder was painful, I have to say. There was a throbbing, and while I didn’t believe the injury to be too severe, I was most loath to open my jack and look. I had a strong reluctance to witness the depth of the injury. As matters stood, I was in a position to believe that it was only a scratch. After all, it is the smallest of splinters in the palm of the hand that hurt the most, is it not?

  The door opened, and Peg appeared. ‘Come in,’ she said, standing aside.

  I entered with gladness. After the lightness outside, it was very dim and gloomy inside. I could barely see my hands before my face.

  Stepping forward, I smiled at Peg as I passed her, and as I did so, I became aware of shadows; little more than shadows, but there were three of them, and then all at once there was a hand on my arm, pulling it away from sword and pistol, while two men stood before me. I squeaked in alarm. Then a man kicked at my knees, and I was on the floor, one man on my chest, while I was divested of all my weapons.

  ‘What is this?’ I demanded.

  ‘We know you, Jack Blackjack. We know who you are, and whom you serve. Did you think us so stupid as to let you kill him?’

  Now, I have been in worse scrapes. Waking on the piss-laden ground of a privy beside a dead body was unpleasant; then there was the time when I was dangling over a cesspit, and a great bear of a man was trying to force me in to drown in … well, in that; and I will not forget waking from a sore head in the chamber of one of the kingdom’s most senior, devious, untrustworthy, dishonest politicians – that was even more terrifying than the others.

  Having said that, there was something about lying on the floor with at least three men about me in the dimness of that chamber that caused me to forget the insult to my person and the pain of my shoulder. Instead, I had to concentrate on containing my bladder. These men sounded determined; they were determined to hurt me. That seemed most obvious. And they appeared to know of my employment. Oh, and one large fellow was holding a sword’s point at my bowels. That concentrated my mind most effectively. Especially when he grinned at me. It was as reassuring as seeing a wolf bare its teeth at me.

  ‘I don’t think we have quite the right understanding,’ I said, keeping my voice calm and reasonable.

  ‘Who ordered you to come here?’

  ‘Hal Westmecott, the executioner. He asked me to find his wife because he wants his boy back. I suppose you know that—’

  ‘A reasonable invention,’ the voice said again. Gradually, as my eyesight began to discern the figures in the chamber, I could make out faces. The speaker was a tall man, with a most pointed face, his chin a sharp angle, as though his features were a triangle. If he were to give up knocking innocent fellows to the ground, he could have gained employment as an awl in a leatherworker’s workplace. He had a thin beard and moustache, and the jack about his shoulders looked to be of good quality, perhaps satin or silk. His voice was smooth and careless, which was worrying. It made him sound like a nobleman, and noblemen tend to be unconcerned about injuries suffered by fellows such as me.

  He continued, ‘Who really sent you? We are not persuaded that you could have been sent by some oafish knave like him. He’s too sotten with ale to care about his wife or son.’

  ‘You may think so, but he was most persuasive.’

  The man smiled. It was not a reassuring look. ‘You think he is the sort of man to care about his wife and son?’

  ‘Ask her! She will tell the truth, I am sure,’ I said, but my belly was cringing at the nearness of that sword’s blade, and suddenly I was assailed by the thought that if they asked this benighted woman, and she didn’t agree with what I said, that sword might plunge down in an instant.

  ‘Don’t whine,’ the man said. He peered at me closely. ‘What sort of man is this executioner? Is he the sort to treat a wife like a chattel? Beat her, whip her, use her abominably?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Oh, really? And I suppose you aren’t being paid to find her?’

  ‘No.’

  He looked at me as though I was a cockroach, but a cockroach that could whistle a shanty. ‘In that case, why did you agree to look for her and his son?’

  ‘Ask Peg there – she told me she knew his wife, and was taking me to her,’ I said, looking at her sorrowfully. ‘Why don’t you let me speak to her, and I’ll be on my way if she wants nothing to do with her husband?’

  ‘Are you so dull-witted that you need to ask?’

  This was from the heavyset man with the sword. He seemed irritable, as though he thought I was making fun of them all.

  The last man was over by the wall with Peg. He was even broader than the man with the sword, with square shoulders and the look of a man who would be handy with his fists. Or a knife. Or a sword. Or … You get the idea. He was vaguely familiar, as heathen, murderous, brutes often are. ‘I’ve heard enough. He was here to kill the child. Just run him through now and let us be on our way, in God’s name.’

  ‘No! Wait!’ I protested, and made a brief move to rise. The sword’s point was instantly more noticeable, and I sank back again. ‘I don’t understand! I was sent to find the boy, nothing more, not to hurt him, and now …’

  ‘We know who you are, Blackjack,’ the nobleman said. ‘We know you serve that black-hearted son of a fox, John Blount, so don’t try to persuade us you’re just an innocent abroad. What did he tell you?’

  ‘It has nothing to do with him!’ I said with surprise, and my voice and face must have been convi
ncing, because even Peg said, ‘I believe him.’

  ‘All the more reason to kill him,’ said my friend who was standing beside her. ‘If he is lying, he’s too believable. If he’s telling the truth, he’s heard too much from us. I say kill him now and be done.’

  There was a shivering in my bowels on hearing that flat tone. ‘You would kill a man because he knows nothing? You would murder me just for trying to do a good deed for a man who asked it of me? You would kill a man—’

  ‘For not being silent and continuing to whine like a kicked whelp? Yes,’ the nobleman said.

  I suddenly had a feeling of remorse for kicking Hector after his theft of my breakfast. ‘But I only wanted to bring back—’

  ‘The boy, yes. The deeply caring executioner wants his son back. Why would that be, do you think?’

  ‘He feels the loss of the lad? How would I know? He told me that he wanted the boy back, and that was all.’

  ‘Why does he want the fellow now?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Perhaps because he thinks there is something to his advantage?’

  ‘From the son of a bawd? He thought to make money from her or their son?’

  Sadly, there was an answer which he supplied himself. ‘If he wants the woman, perhaps he has heard she had an arrangement with a man far superior to her class and her husband’s? Perhaps he thinks he can use this child? He might seek to capture the boy and demand ransom for his safety?’

  That was not something that had occurred to me in my wildest moments. ‘He … she … you mean …’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘No, surely not. Westmecott wouldn’t be happy to raise the child of another man.’

  ‘If he knew.’

  ‘Of course, he must have known,’ I said, and then I was silent. Westmecott, who was drunk every night so he could forget his work; Westmecott, who would barely have recognized his own face in a mirror, and would never have recognized the face of another man in his son; Westmecott, who probably routinely beat his wife … It was all too believable that he wouldn’t realize he was raising another’s boy. But by the same token, ‘How could you know that the boy was not his? If his wife was so incontinent as to be flying about the city and offering herself to your nobleman, how would he know it was not Westmecott’s?’

  ‘Perhaps because Westmecott didn’t know his woman had given birth? Perhaps because she left him when the beatings grew too violent, and she had not yet had a child? Perhaps because she was placed in a safe home, and became concubine to her lover? Perhaps because ten months later, she gave birth to a boy?’

  ‘Hah, but that would mean she left Westmecott before she had her son!’

  ‘Yes. At last I believe you begin to understand.’

  ‘But if the lad wasn’t born, how could he have told me about his boy?’

  The man with Peg sighed. ‘As I say, run him through. We don’t have time for this.’

  ‘He has heard that Moll has a child with her, since he has asked you to find them, I suppose?’ the nobleman said. ‘And now he seeks to capture the boy and demand money – or he has another plan. Something even less to my taste. Whichever it may be, it is not acceptable. The question is, were you sent to kill the boy or to kidnap him?’

  ‘Me?’ I squeaked, and at that moment several things happened.

  First, the nobleman looked across to the man with the sword, and I saw a wordless communication pass between them; second, reading in that message a significant threat to my health, I gave a shrill squeal, slapped the sword away before it could puncture my belly, and rolled away; third, a loud hammering came at the door, and a cry of ‘Open in the name of the Queen!’

  There was instant pandemonium. I continued rolling, then scampered to the far wall, where I cowered with my arms over my head. The nobleman gave a sharp command and strode through a door at the rear of the chamber, closely followed by his companions, and Peg ran to the door, drawing the bolts, and then threw herself at my side, her arms about me. I cringed at the feel of them and tried to pull away, but she was like one of those things that clasps to the timbers of ships – a barnacle – and I could not shake her off.

  The door was flung wide, and a heavyset trio marched in, the leader a city tipstaff. He held his staff towards me and snarled. ‘Is that him?’

  ‘Aye!’

  It was the carter, and he spat in my direction. ‘Threatened me with a gun, he did.’

  ‘All right, that’s enough.’

  ‘What is this?’ Peg demanded. I was still shivering from the thought of the sword held at my belly.

  ‘This man says you two had foul words with him, and your man tried to shoot him.’

  ‘That’s a lie! The carter almost ran us down in the lane outside here, and when we protested, he lashed us!’

  ‘Your man fired his gun.’

  ‘No, I didn’t!’ I said hotly. ‘There’s my gun, on the floor over there. Smell it and see. If it had been discharged, you would be able to smell it. I have not fired it.’

  ‘It is easy enough to clean a pistol.’

  ‘With what? Tell me if you can find a piece of rag or anything else that I have used to clean it,’ I said. I was growing angry now. The threat to my life of the last few minutes, the pain (which I was once more aware of) in my shoulder, the sight of the man who had caused the injury standing there and accusing me of threatening him, all built until I was filled with a righteous exasperation. ‘What is the meaning of this? That fellow tried to run us down, and when we remonstrated, he cut me with his whip – here, look!’ I said, and pulled my jack open.

  Peg gave a small ‘Ooh’ and looked away. I glanced at her and then down. And as I did so, I was aware of a sudden hissing and boiling noise. It sounded as though the Thames was rising to flood the entire city. It truly sounded to me as if we were about to be inundated. But then the noise abated.

  My shirt was a mass of blood. The sight made me go from boiling hot to freezing cold in an instant.

  I heard no more. I fainted.

  I have had worse awakenings. To be brought to my senses with my head resting on the soft, warm thighs of a woman while she stroked my cheeks and brow with a clean cloth, that was all perfectly acceptable. She was drinking strong wine from a goblet, and she tipped the rim to my lips. I sipped. It was a good Sherris sack, one of those fortified wines from Spain. When she spoke, I could smell the warm odour on her breath. It made her still more lovely to my eye. Women with a cargo of strong wine on board are always more likely to fall for the Blackjack charm.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  Of course, I should have guessed. This was a day of surprises for me, but the red-gold hair, the eyes that held a reserved gaiety, while not concealing the pain that lay behind them, and the positively bouncing bosom that moved so wondrously as she inhaled – these surely would have told me in an instant who owned such bounties, were my brains not addled from questionings and beatings.

  ‘You were looking for me, Peggy says.’

  I sat up and winced. My shirt was gone, and instead I now wore a curious tracery of bandages about my chest and shoulder. ‘Where am I?’ I said, looking around. It was a large chamber, with a large, good-quality bed on the right, windows that gave a splendid view of an ancient building opposite, and a door before me. I was lying on Moll’s lap, on a truckle bed that was too short for a man of my height. Clearly, then, a bed for a child.

  ‘Where are the tipstaff and the carter?’

  ‘When the tipstaff saw your injury, he took the carter away. I think he has some explaining to do.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, trying to rotate my shoulder. It was very sore. ‘Who did this?’

  ‘I was taught how to bind a wound when I was a child. How are you feeling? You fainted quite away.’

  ‘You cannot be Moll. You wouldn’t be Westmecott’s woman,’ I said, and I meant it. She was lovely. Small-boned, she was a pretty, lithe little thing, with the kind of vivacity that comes from owning a certai
n position in the world; I could not see her being the wife of a drunken oaf like him.

  ‘Why?’

  I tried to give her the old Blackjack charm. ‘You are far too beautiful, my lovely.’

  Shutters dropped behind her eyes. I had overplayed my hand. She hadn’t consumed enough wine yet. ‘Yes, you are better.’

  She pushed me from her lap and stood, wiping her hands down her skirts to smooth the material. ‘Peggy told me about you.’

  ‘Then you know I am not here to hurt you. Please, more wine?’

  ‘No, you only came to steal the boy from me.’

  ‘No! I was asked to find you and see whether you would let your boy go to him. He wants to see his son.’

  ‘It’s not his, and he knows it.’

  ‘How could he tell?’ I scoffed.

  She gave me a very direct stare which included a certain degree of puzzlement. ‘Because I am not his wife. I don’t know him.’

  Of course many women can lie most effectively, especially the ladies of her profession, but I was struck by the conviction in her tone. I am graced with a good ear for dissembling. This sounded like the truth.

  ‘The boy is nothing to do with the man you speak of,’ she said. ‘I will not give him up.’

  ‘You aren’t married to Hal Westmecott?’ I tried again.

  ‘I don’t know him. I was married to Hugh Tanner, but he died. Then I met a pleasant nobleman. And … well.’

  ‘Of course, some ladies might decide to forget marriage with a man like Westmecott,’ I said with an attempt at an understanding smile.

  ‘You think I’ve forgotten getting married?’