Death Comes Hot

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Yes,’ he said with earnest conviction. I tutted and waved Raphe away even as he brought his foot back once more. ‘No, Raphe. I think our guest would appreciate a glass of sack, and I know I would. Now, if you please.’

  Raphe gave our guest a virulent look that should, if the world were to rights, have melted the man there and then, before stalking out of the room and along the passage to the buttery. I, meanwhile, leaned back in my chair and smiled down at the fellow. ‘Now, why don’t you tell me what this is all about?’

  ‘I am called Geoffrey of Thorney,’ the fellow told me. He squirmed a little, and I thought the two kicks must have left him feeling a need to rearrange his pizzle and balls. I could easily imagine that the two were swelling to the size of pigs’ bladders after Raphe’s enthusiastic treatment of them. When he looked up at me again, arching his back as though to reorder his anatomy and make its contact with the floor more comfortable, I smiled at him.

  ‘I come from near Westminster. My father had a good holding there, bordering on the river, but he lost it in recent years. My family was keen to support the old King, and his son. But now …’

  He said no more about our Queen, but I could see the direction of his thinking. There was no need for him to emphasize the situation. ‘Continue.’

  ‘My father was a loyal subject of King Henry, bless his name. But this latest member of the family – she is little better than a snake. She bites and poisons all whom she meets. Look at how she treats her father’s priests! She captures them, insists that they should change their beliefs, and then threatens them with death if they refuse!’

  ‘And one such was your brother?’

  ‘He gave a sermon in which he spoke of the honour and integrity of the new Church. It was a matter of faith, so he believed, and thus he preached. He was a man of honour, my brother James, a man who always spoke his mind and tried to be honest with all. He spoke a sermon, and only a day or two later, the henchmen of the Queen appeared and arrested him. They tortured him, tried to force him to recant, but he wouldn’t. He stuck to his faith, and in the end they decided to execute him on the pyre. And then—’

  ‘Someone made certain that his powder was wet,’ I said.

  Raphe walked in at that point and stood near Geoffrey with a tray in his hands. The injured man looked up at him, and I could see the thought running through his mind that he could snap his leg up and hit the back of Raphe’s knee, knocking him to the ground. It was tempting to see it happen, but sadly a fellow cannot live for pleasure alone. I snapped at Raphe to leave the prisoner alone. He grumpily set the tray on the table near me and left. I stood, took up my dagger and used it to slash through the bonds holding Geoffrey to the post. He stood, teetering a little, a hand going to his head, and then made his way to a stool. I poured wine and passed him a goblet. He lifted it in mute salutation and drank. ‘Very pleasant.’

  ‘It should be for the price,’ I said. ‘So your brother was held.’

  ‘Yes, only a couple of days after his sermon.’

  ‘Why a couple of days? Usually they will arrest a heretic in a matter of hours.’

  ‘Perhaps there were too many other heretics to catch that day.’

  I shook my head. ‘Was he not there to be arrested?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged with bafflement. ‘What does it matter? He was found and they killed him.’

  ‘Which is illuminating, but there is the other aspect: what if he was being watched, and the men captured him at the first opportunity when he was in the church again?’

  ‘Well? What of it?’

  I wasn’t sure myself, but it did seem odd. Queen Mary’s men tended to be along at once when they heard of a priest who had not stuck to her script. They were wont to move in quickly to remove any elements of sedition or heresy, yet they had allowed this priest to remain free. If he had been away, of course, they would not have been able to catch him. I made a mental note of that. ‘Where are you living?’

  ‘I live over at Thorney, but I doubt I will be able to remain there for long. Now they have killed James, I do not doubt that they will come for me.’

  ‘Why, you haven’t been giving any sermons, have you?’

  ‘Me? Nay! I am no sermonizer. But his blood runs in my veins. You know how the rich think of such things. If a man has the same blood as a traitor, that man must be executed. It is hazardous to be related these days.’

  ‘Well, in future, try to withhold your more violent urges, good fellow. Don’t try to attack the innocent. Next time, I may not be so lenient. I will allow Raphe full dispensation to take whatever vengeance he feels he wishes.’

  He pulled a face. ‘Aye. And now you will let me leave, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes. I have no use for you.’

  ‘What, you will allow me to walk from here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And your boy will follow me, I expect?’

  ‘I doubt it. I have work for the fool.’

  He looked about him as though expecting to see at any moment a band of halberdiers or archers burst in from behind the tapestries, and his expression was so comical that I could not help but chuckle. ‘The door is there, and you are welcome to use it.’

  ‘Even after I assaulted you?’ he said.

  ‘I think Raphe revenged me.’

  He walked to the door and opened it, leaning out to peer up my corridor. Returning, he went to the tray and refilled my goblet and then his own. ‘There is one thing that may help me to find the men who ended my brother’s life,’ he said. ‘I believe that it was one of the Seymour family who reported him to the officials.’

  That I had little idea who the Seymours were should really not be a surprise. Yes, I had heard the name related to poor Queen Jane, the lady who married King Henry and who gave birth to his son, before succumbing to the ailment so common to mothers shortly after they give birth. Henry had revered her, for she was the only wife who had given him his most fervent desire: a son. When she died, she became the first of his wives to be buried as Queen, and her bones rested alongside his in Windsor, I had heard. But that was all I knew of her and her deadly family.

  Oh, in England we have our share of ruffians. There are many who rise through the ranks of the aristocracy and become great men, but make no mistake: for every good gentleman who sits in a lofty palace, there are twenty or a hundred more who are little better than pirates or thieves. If you find yourself confronted by a man who calls himself a lord, best that you duck and run, because he will run you through faster than a drawlatch steeped in brandy. The higher they rise, the poorer the manners, the more vicious the behaviour, the more ruthless the greed, and the more despicable the crimes. I have known murderers who would blench to see the way that a lord or duke might flatter a fellow and then stab him as soon as his back was turned. Even the most cruel and vile dregs of London’s lowest sewers would grimace and avert their gaze, were they to witness some of the acts I have seen perpetrated by the highest in the land.

  But for sheer, callous ambition, the brothers of Jane Seymour would take considerable beating, I was to learn. One was Edward, Earl of Hertford, who became the Lord Protector to King Edward till the poor lad’s death; another was Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley Castle, who had the temerity to marry the last Queen of King Henry, Catherine Parr – who was, by all accounts, a kind, loving lady who deserved better than a husband who was engaged only in increasing his lands and taking as wife a woman who could increase his standing. Not that it did him any good. Lord Thomas was soon thought to be overreaching himself, and had been arrested and beheaded some years before. It made me wonder briefly whether his executioner was the same Westmecott who had so signally failed to kill Geoffrey’s brother with dispatch. It would have been his usual incompetence, if so.

  So, yes, I did know of the Seymours, but they tended to be men of the past, men who had been in positions of power eight, nine, ten years before, but who were certainly not prominent now. One was dead already, and his brother, t
he Lord Protector, had fallen out of favour since the rise of Queen Mary, no doubt. He was one of the old guard, one of those men who had aided her half-brother on his campaign to enforce the new religion. As such, she would have wanted him removed from any position of authority as soon as she took her throne. That was my feeling.

  As for other members of the family, why should I have heard of any of them? It was my belief that the family had little in the way of influence, and that which they did hold on to was unlikely to affect a local parish priest. Especially since the Seymours were, or so I guessed, keen supporters of the new Church and not the old. The man who must have reported Father James was surely a Catholic, seeing James punished for being so determined to preach against the return of the Catholic Church.

  That was how I reasoned, in any case. Which only goes to show how far adrift a man’s reasoning can fly from the target.

  I watched Geoffrey as he walked from my parlour. At the front door, he cast a lingering glance at Raphe. Raphe opened the door for him, and the fellow slipped through it and out into the busy street. A boy stood nearby, no doubt waiting for a horse that required a mobile tether, and a pastry boy ran past with a basket filled with pies. At the corner, a man leaned against a wall and sharpened his knife on a whetstone, spitting on it to lubricate it, and a woman, vaguely familiar, crossed the road behind him. London, busy and noisy as always.

  Once we were rid of the hobbling Geoffrey, who was still suffering even after three good goblets of wine, I turned to Raphe and demanded where he had been so early in the morning.

  There are some men who can dissemble with the best. Raphe was not one of those. He reddened, turned away, studied the ceiling, bent to fuss his beast and, all in all, refused to give me a sensible answer. His attitude seemed to indicate that he was determined to evade any close questioning of his absence, which was, of course, the one sure guarantee that I would not leave him alone on the matter.

  ‘Where were you?’ I demanded again. I had followed him through to the kitchen, where he was attempting to emulate a deaf mute while he cleaned the tray and goblets.

  ‘I went out.’ It was hardly helpful, but at least he had broken his Trappist vow.

  ‘I could tell that. Where had you gone so early in the morning?’

  ‘There was a game over at the Dragon,’ he muttered, and at last daylight began to shine.

  ‘You were gambling?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to! I didn’t want to be there! I only went for a little while to enjoy the drinking, but then …’

  ‘What was it? Cockfighting? Dogs? Cards?’

  ‘Cocks,’ he admitted. His head hung, and I was sure there was more to this than first met my eye.

  ‘How much?’

  He mumbled something, and I pressed him to answer.

  ‘Three shillings.’

  I gaped at that. A man would be fortunate, were he able to afford to lose so much of an evening; for a lad like Raphe to throw away three shillings spoke of untold riches. And if he possessed riches, it was not from my pocket – at least, not knowingly.

  ‘Where did you get three shillings?’ I demanded, and caught hold of the short hairs between his ear and temple. I have learned that if a man pulls these hairs and twists, his victim will be hard pressed to concentrate on anything other than his master. ‘Well?’

  ‘A man, Master, a man! I meant no harm by it! He was there in the tavern, and he offered me money for a little information – just information, that is all!’

  ‘What did you tell him?’ I was appalled to hear that he had been talking to strangers, and my first thought was, what about?

  ‘I … Ow! He wanted to know who visited you the day before the execution of James Thorney – that’s all! He wanted to know who it was and why he had visited. I didn’t see any harm in it, so I told him it was Westmecott, and he paid me.’

  ‘He paid you three shillings, and you didn’t think it was strange?’

  ‘He said it was a wager, and I would earn him three times that when he told his companion who it was. His companion … ow! He said it was a friend who always won gambles, and he wanted to get his own back on him, said he thought he recognized the man, and he was surprised the fellow was visiting you, that you were more the type of man to welcome the better sort to your house, he thought.’

  I had already relaxed my grip. Now I jerked his hair up again. He yelped, and I snarled, ‘You told him who I was?’

  ‘No, no, I swear! He knew who you were already; he said you were a henchman to John Blount, and I couldn’t argue with that, could I? Then he asked what Westmecott was doing here, and I told him about the powder, but that was all, and soon after the man left me … ow!’ he added with a surly grimace as I released him, and he could lift his hand to the injured temple. ‘That hurt,’ he added.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘What did this interesting gambler look like?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Average. About your height, maybe taller. He was dressed in old travelling clothes, but he was a London man. I could hear that in his voice. He was trying to look foreign, but it wouldn’t fool a blind scarecrow.’

  ‘Hair?’

  ‘Brown, and his eyes, too.’

  ‘Beard?’

  ‘Yes, a little pointy one that missed his cheeks.’

  ‘What sort of clothes did he wear?’

  ‘An old jack and hosen, but not cheap. When they were new, they would have been worth a year’s money.’

  ‘What colour were they?’

  ‘A faded green, with some red piping, and slashes at the sleeves to show light brown lining. And he had a short cloak of blue.’

  ‘Would you recognize him again?’

  ‘Yes, I expect,’ he said, still rubbing. ‘That hurt.’

  ‘Yes. I want you to keep an eye open for this man. If you do, I may give you a shilling.’

  ‘He gave me three.’

  ‘And you lost them all. When did you come home?’

  ‘When you were out.’

  ‘So you were out all the night?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘When you were supposed to be here, attending to me?’

  ‘I didn’t go until you were ready for your bed, and it was late when I got back.’

  I eyed him with revulsion. ‘You are without a doubt the worst—’

  ‘Servant in London. Yes, I know.’

  ‘Decant some wine and bring it to me.’

  It was early evening when I closed the door behind me and set off to the Dragon. From all I had heard from Raphe, this den of shame and harlotry was worth a visit.

  When I arrived, there was a roaring of excitement, and soon a slumped body was brought out to the street and dropped unceremoniously in a puddle. The fellow was stirred awake when a great ox of a man stood over him and slowly tipped a jug of ale over his face. He jerked to, blowing froth and beer in all directions, sitting up blearily.

  ‘That’s the last time you come into the Dragon, understand me? Stay away from here,’ the ox said, and urged him to his feet with a none-too-gentle boot. Then, while the figure on the ground crumpled into a ball, retching desperately, the bovine character turned and observed me. ‘You here for the view, or something else?’

  ‘I am here for the drinking. And perhaps gambling.’

  He looked me up and down and apparently didn’t object too strongly to what he saw, because he jerked his head at the door, and, only pausing long enough to kick the man on the ground again, he made his way indoors. I followed.

  The tavern was much like any other tavern in the city. It smelled of piss and vomit, with a slight overtone of sour ale and vinegary wine. A fire roared in the hearth, and various gentlemen were standing or sitting nearby, watching a couple gambling over a game of cards. Others were at the far wall, chatting the sort of nonsense that drunken men will talk the world over. One was giggling, with a very high-pitched, squeaky voice, while at his side a tall, stooped man was rumbling with a voice so deep I could feel the stones of the flag
ged floor tremble. However, all this was suddenly of less interest, because as I walked in, the whole chamber grew silent. It was like a candle-flame: one minute all was bright and dancing with energy; the next it was snuffed out.

  There are many taverns and alehouses like this, of course. I have been to many of them in my time. Those nearer the great centres for visitors, such as St Paul’s Cathedral, are always cheery and welcoming. It’s far better for a Londoner to be effusive in greeting foreigners, because that way a man can dip into a purse or cut it free. Beware the London tavern where everyone is glad to see you!

  Other places are more like this. I was known here, and after a moment or two the men inside turned back to their drinks and muttering to each other, but it was enough to make me realize that whoever had been in here with Raphe was not unknown. Perhaps the imbecile was right, and the man he saw in here was a London man.

  I bought a pint of wine and sat at a table in a darker corner. Others tried to entice me into a game of cards, but although I can palm with the best, I felt far below the competence of these players. Compared with the dazzling dexterity of the sharps in that room, my attempts would have looked clumsy. There was a roaring at the back of the tavern, which was where I guessed a bowling alley was set against the back of the building. From the sound of it, there was quite a gathering there, but I remained in my seat, watching the door. I wanted to see the man as he came in. If he came in.

  Settling with my back to the wall, I prepared myself for a lengthy wait. After all, there was no certainty that the man would appear today. All I knew was that he had been in here last night. Many men would go to a tavern one day and not reappear for a week or more. It could well be that this man would not come back for a month. There were many taverns, alehouses and inns in London. A fellow could walk the streets and visit a different one every day for a year. Two years.

  Still, the wine was pleasing, the raucous laughter was proof of the good companionship in the place, and my eyes were heavy after waking to Westmecott’s knocking so early in the day. I began to feel my lids drop like shutters over a window.