Death Comes Hot

by Michael Jecks

‘I doubt that. Go back in there now and rest in front of the fire. I will have Raphe bring you wine. Go: rest!’

  As she went in and sat at the fire, I beckoned Raphe. ‘Fetch them some wine, and bread and cheese. Well done for not leaving her alone in the house.’

  ‘I couldn’t. Not with her being a hussy and that.’

  ‘Yes, well, that is fine. Your friend from the tavern, the one who paid you, would you remember his face?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  Yes. He would remember a man who had paid him three shillings. ‘Good. If you see him about here, let me know. And then, when you have served them in the parlour, I want you to go to find Humfrie and bring him here.’

  Before you get all maudlin on me, no, I was not asking Humfrie to come and murder the pair of them. However, it did occur to me that he would have to be squared. I didn’t want him to come to my house unannounced and cause mayhem on discovering the woman and boy in residence.

  I walked through and sat on a stool near Peggy. She gave me a sharp look, as though expecting me to lift her skirts and molest her there and then, but I had other things on my mind. ‘Molly didn’t say she was going anywhere?’

  ‘No. Far as I knew, she was there for the day.’

  ‘Right. So, how did you meet her?’

  She glanced at me, then stared into the fire, occasionally throwing a short look at Ben, who was playing tug-o-war with Hector, using the brute’s favourite piece of old rope. ‘It was in the Hat. She was already there when I joined. Her man, she said, was keen for her to earn more money, and she was happy to do it. It meant she could keep something by, when she wanted. And then she had a …’

  ‘Yes?’

  She had slowed to a halt, and now she stared fixedly at the boy on the floor beside her. I was struck again by the conviction that she was concealing something from me, and I felt a frown start to crease my brow. If the silly wench couldn’t trust me now, whom could she trust? I was about to snap at her, when she sighed and nodded as though concluding an argument with herself.

  ‘She became pregnant. She had her child.’

  ‘Westmecott’s child?’

  She looked at me. ‘Unlikely. But for a woman in the trade, it would be hard to be sure who a father was, obviously.’

  ‘You mean Ben, do you?’

  She threw a look at Ben and smiled at him. ‘No.’

  I opened my mouth, closed it, frowned and took a deep breath as I tried to come to terms with her words. ‘No, let me … you mean …’

  ‘Her child was a girl. She was born, but died within the week, and poor Moll was distraught, as you’d expect. She didn’t know what to do with herself.’

  ‘She couldn’t tell Westmecott, of course. He’s a foul bully,’ I said, ‘and he’d have given her no sympathy. Worse, he’d have sneered and jibed at her inability to give him a boy, I suppose. He would have thanked her for removing a daughter before they wasted any money on her. Besides, she would have been driven to madness if she had gone back to him.’

  Peggy gave me a sharp little glance. ‘Meanwhile,’ she continued meaningfully, ‘she had her breasts full of milk.’

  A light dawned. ‘So she became wet-nurse to someone else’s child?’

  She gave me a look that must have been admiring, although, with her pinched features, she looked more, well, condescending. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘A Seymour.’

  ‘Ah, of course.’ Ben was a Seymour, clearly. I had seen that instantly when I first saw him in the house with Edward Seymour. They both had the same sharp, triangular features. ‘So Moll took up nursing with Ben, and since then has been as much a mother to the boy as his own mother. She was married to Edward? Or perhaps she was a local girl? And died in childbirth, I suppose?’

  ‘You suppose much,’ she said tartly. ‘Moll was taken on to look after Ben, and was like a mother to him, yes. In fact, I would think that if you asked her, she would say that this fellow is as much her son as anyone else’s. She has seen to his needs every day since he was born, feeding him, washing him, playing with him, seeing he sleeps well, everything.’

  ‘But you think that the Seymours want to remove her from him?’

  ‘Someone has taken her away. And I don’t know where!’

  Ben looked around at that moment, and in his face I saw the same despair reflected from Peggy’s. He dropped the rope and threw himself into Peggy’s arms, and the two started to sob just as Raphe opened the door with a board of food and drink. Raphe took one look about him and gave an anxious smile, like a man thrown into a room full of children and told to keep them happy. I motioned to the table, and he hurriedly set out the board and scurried away like a rat running from a cat. Soon afterwards, I heard the door slam. With relief, I reflected that Humfrie would soon be here. I would be glad to hear his thoughts on the matter.

  I said soothingly, ‘Anthony Seymour told me that she was under their protection.’

  ‘You believe him?’ she said scornfully. ‘I just don’t understand why they should suddenly turn against her. If she was taken on as wet-nurse, and has fulfilled her duties, why would they want to be rid of her now?’

  ‘Something must have changed.’

  ‘Plainly. But what?’

  I looked at the boy, who had nuzzled his face into Peggy’s bosom. Perhaps he could tell us what had happened, I wondered, but even as I had the thought, Peggy’s brows came down, and she shook her head. She was worried that the boy could be disturbed. It was bad enough that he had lost his mother, without being scared about what might have happened to Moll.

  ‘You know nothing more?’

  ‘No, nothing,’ she said, her eyes fixed on the boy.

  She wouldn’t meet my eye again. She was lying.

  Humfrie arrived just as Ben had dozed off and been put in a bed. The boy was carried upstairs by Peggy and placed on the truckle bed in my bedchamber, where he immediately rolled over and began to snore. Peggy tucked in the blankets about him, and I was about to suggest that we might also benefit from resting, and that we could share my bed, but even as I was attempting my lascivious grin, the door slammed. I hurried downstairs.

  ‘He said you wanted me?’ Humfrie said, jerking a thumb at my useless servant.

  ‘He was right. Come into the parlour,’ I said. Once we were sitting before the fire, I told him what had happened.

  ‘The boy and this whore are here now?’ he said, dumbfounded. When I say dumbfounded, I mean his mouth fell wide, and he stood gazing at me rather like the village idiot. If I had announced I could fly, he could not have been more surprised. ‘How will you explain that to Master Blount? You said you had been told to kill the lad, and now you invite him into your house? How will that look when you need an alibi? I cannot kill them here!’

  ‘I didn’t invite anyone! They appeared here when I was talking to you, man! You think I want this complication?’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to throw them out, as soon as possible. You can’t keep them here. At least there is one good aspect to the whole mess,’ he said musingly. ‘If these Seymours have changed their mind and want to kill the boy now, maybe they will save us the trouble and embarrassment. I don’t like the idea of hurting children, as I said to you. If they are going to do it, well, it will be less of a problem for us.’

  ‘I don’t think the boy should die,’ I said. ‘He’s done nothing.’

  ‘Isn’t that the same for almost everybody who dies?’

  ‘Humfrie, there is something very strange going on. The Seymours raise the boy, but now seem to have changed their minds. Why would that be? If the boy is of their blood, why would they seek to harm him? Just because he is a bastard? Other families raise their bastards as their own. What could the Seymours have against this lad?’

  ‘You think that the lad is the son of this Edward Seymour?’

  ‘His face is astonishingly similar.’

  ‘I have known men who were second or third cousins to have astonishing
likenesses,’ Humfrie said thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes, but Edward and the boy are so alike that they can only be father and son, I am sure.’

  ‘If you say so. So he had a fling with Moll, and—’

  ‘I don’t know that.’

  He looked at me with a kind of withering infuriation.

  I explained, ‘One thing that Peggy did let slip was that she was sure Moll didn’t give birth to the boy. Ben was born about the time that Molly gave birth to a daughter who died. She had milk and was hired to be wet-nurse to Ben. I suppose she was available and convenient, so she remained as his nursemaid.’

  ‘So she isn’t needed now,’ Humfrie said thoughtfully. ‘And there’s no way to tell who the mother was.’

  ‘Nor which of the Seymours was the father.’

  ‘If either of them. And if the mother was a whore, perhaps—’

  I shook my head at that. ‘The boy is remarkably similar in looks to Edward. Even if Ben and Edward weren’t related, and they were more removed – say, cousins – surely a family would keep all its bloodlines secure. They wouldn’t just destroy a boy because he wasn’t quite as pure as others.’

  ‘Have you thought about other matters? What if the boy is from another branch of the family, and his presence means the two Seymour brothers may not inherit something if the lad endures? Perhaps he is set to take over lands and titles which the two covet?’

  ‘As a bastard?’

  ‘Even bastards can be named in wills.’

  ‘What of Moll?’

  ‘If they decided to do away with the boy, they may feel that the wet-nurse could become … problematical. If she’s been with the boy for seven, eight years, she could be assumed to have become quite attached to him, couldn’t she? They might have thought it would be safer to do away with her.’

  ‘So that they could kill him.’

  ‘Yes. So, like I say,’ Humfrie said, determined to look upon the brighter side, ‘it’s all for the best, really. You throw them out, the Seymours will find them and kill them, and we won’t have to do it ourselves. Likely, we’ll still be paid by Master Blount.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. It did make sense. I was about to comment when the door opened and Peggy walked in. She looked quickly from me to Humfrie and was undecided about whether to enter fully or to leave.

  I looked at her. She had those pinched, nervous features, and no womanly curves, but there was something about her that caught my attention. Every time I had looked at her, I had seen the hard, mercenary exterior of a working wench. This was a woman who would know to the nearest clipped ha’penny what she was worth. For her companionship, so much; for a handy fumble in an alley, a little more; for her company for an entire evening, a lot more – but just now I was seeing a different aspect of her. I was seeing the woman, and this was a scared woman, a woman who knew that her life was in danger, as was the life of her charge.

  ‘Come inside,’ I said. Whatever the reason was, this was not a woman in control of her life and fully capable of injuring me, no matter what I tried to do; this was now a vulnerable, scared young thing who needed comforting and protection.

  She walked in, chaste as a nun, with her hands clasped before her. ‘He’s asleep.’

  ‘Good. And now we need to discuss what we can do with you to protect you,’ I said.

  I saw Humfrie roll his eyes heavenwards.

  Humfrie was looking at me doubtfully. He often did, to be fair, when he thought I had lost leave of my senses, but today I felt confident.

  ‘Peggy, I don’t think you should stay in London. You need to get away, out into the country somewhere, and you need to take Ben with you, if you are certain that you want to protect him?’

  ‘I have to. The poor little mite can’t survive on his own, not now Moll’s gone.’

  ‘Right, we need to find a safe place for you, then.’ I looked at Humfrie.

  ‘I have a sister who lives in a small village called Clapham. It’s far enough outside London to be safe, but close enough that we can see how things are,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘That will be fine, then. You must tell people that Ben is your son. Don’t let them think that you are looking after him for a friend. And don’t mention Moll. That would lead the Seymours to you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, looking at Humfrie.

  ‘Yes, well,’ he said uncomfortably. I guessed he was thinking about his instructions to kill the boy and the mother. But this woman was neither mother nor any other relation. She was safe enough from Humfrie. I just hoped Ben was, too.

  ‘How soon should we go?’ she asked.

  ‘We will depart at first light,’ Humfrie said.

  She left us to get her head down before leaving, and I remained in the parlour with Humfrie. ‘You are sure your sister will allow you to leave a stranger with her?’

  ‘Sal will cope. She always had a soft heart for those in need, and if she sees that boy, she’ll defend him to the last.’

  ‘So you, um, won’t—’

  ‘I told you. I don’t like that kind of work. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s safe from me.’

  He went quiet, staring at the flames for a while, and I was just thinking that I should perhaps be thinking of getting to my bed as well when he spoke again. ‘I suppose you are sure that she’s not going to hurt the boy?’

  ‘Her? Peggy?’ I said. ‘What on earth … Humfrie, you are so used to seeing the worst in people that you find it impossible to cope with real, kind, generous people!’

  ‘You tell me that she took you to where the boy and his mother were, and the Seymours trusted her and captured you. Moll appeared, you said, and you were resting your head in her lap. But now, suddenly, Peggy is hunted by the Seymours; she has to grab the boy to run from them. And she comes to you – a man she never trusted before. What if the Seymours are still trying to protect the woman and the boy, but she has taken the boy from them? I’m just trying to see things in a different light, that’s all. Trying to see how this could all go wrong. There’s something that doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘You’re seriously suggesting that young maid could have planned to kill the boy? If she did, why didn’t she cut his throat while he was in the house where he lived? Or on the way here? Or not come here at all?’ I scoffed.

  It was very quiet upstairs, I noticed. My eyes rose to the ceiling. There was the usual noise of Raphe banging pots and pans in the kitchen, pretending to prepare a meal or imitating some alternative servant duties, but nothing from upstairs.

  No, I refused to contemplate Humfrie’s ridiculous suggestions.

  ‘I was just wondering that. If she could have, perhaps she would worry that the boy’s body, in the house where he had been held, might be associated with her. Perhaps she had visited often and wanted to make sure that she wasn’t associated with his death? If she took him somewhere else to kill him, it would be easier.’

  ‘What about in the streets?’

  ‘There’s always someone watching you in the streets.’

  My eyes rose again to the ceiling. There was not a sound from the chambers overhead.

  Suddenly, there was a crash, and a noise like a heavy body landing on the floor above us. I sprang to my feet, but hesitated carefully, so that Humfrie had time to leap through the doorway before me, and followed him up the stairs. When he reached the next storey, Humfrie darted straight into my bedchamber. There was no sign of the boy, only a frankly terrified Peggy sitting up in my bed with her hand to her bosom.

  ‘Where is he?’ I demanded harshly. ‘What have you done with him?’

  Peggy began to sob, her breath coming in gasps, and Humfrie set his hand to my arm.

  Ben sat up from the side where he had rolled from his mattress, and peered at us blearily.

  ‘Oh. I see,’ I said, and allowed Humfrie to draw me from the chamber before I upset anyone else.

  FOUR

  Humfrie stayed with me that evening, and the next morning he was up before the dawn, persuading a ya
wning Ben and silent Peggy to rise and eat a little bread and cheese to nourish them for their walk. Then, with a full costrel of wine at his hip, he led them from my door. They would make their way to the bridge, and with luck they would be with his sister before noon.

  I was glad to see them go. I had thought to go and share my bed with Peggy, but as I opened the door to peer into my bedchamber, I saw her start up and cringe away from me as if I were a rapist. I stood there, gazing at her, for some moments. Her disarrayed hair, her alarmed expression, the abject way she snatched at the blankets and pulled them up to her chin, all spoke of a woman in genuine terror. I shook my head, and then walked to the chest at the bottom of the bed, pulling out a couple of thicker blankets. I took these and left the room quietly, sleeping uncomfortably on the chair in my parlour.

  It was peculiar. She was a whore, after all. A common enough trull of a particularly scrawny form. But in there she had looked like a lady frightened for her life. She was not a murderer intent on destroying the boy, that was sure. She was exhausted and lonely. And it made me want to help her. A strange feeling for me.

  I made my way to the kitchen and put a griddle over the fire. I was tired after a not-too-good sleep on the chair, and I needed some food. I heated four slices of bacon, and made a mess of eggs, which I shoved on a wooden trencher. I carried my breakfast into the parlour. Raphe had actually succeeded in laying a new fire already, and I sat in front of it with the food on my lap.

  I was almost finished when there came a loud knocking at the door. For once the dog did not bark the house down, which was a relief, but as soon as I settled, I heard the knock again. Raphe must have gone out with Hector. Grunting, I stood and walked to the hall, opening the door.

  A fist shot through the gap and struck me firmly below the ribs. I was aware of my eyes popping wide as the breath left me in a whoosh, and then I was on the floor, gripping my belly and rolling about as I tried to get some air in my lungs.

  ‘Ah, sorry about that,’ said Anthony Seymour, stepping in and pushing the door shut behind him. ‘I wasn’t sure you were going to let me in.’

  He smiled.