I whimpered.
He stood in my hallway gazing about him with the air of a student of philosophy struck by a new and peculiar tribe. ‘I have often wondered what sort of hovel you would inhabit. This is considerably worse than I had imagined, I have to admit. But each to his own.’
I was still trying to breathe in when he walked into my parlour, pulling off his gloves as he went. Soon he was back, wandering down into the kitchen, while I rolled on to all fours, trying to clear my head of the conviction I was going to die from suffocation. He returned, idly kicked my flank with what felt like a steel boot and made his way upstairs, while I collapsed, a big, bright flower of anguish opening up in my side. It felt almost as if he had planted his entire foot in my ribs, and I was still shivering with pain in a foetal position when he returned and crouched at my side.
‘This isn’t looking good, my friend. I was hoping that I could save you any unnecessary suffering by taking them away, but since you have apparently already secreted him somewhere, I will have to extract the truth from you.’
‘I … don’t know … what …’
‘Come along, now,’ he said with that affable tone of voice used by priests just before hurling threats of eternal damnation. ‘You know it, and I know it. You had him here. Where has he gone? Was he with that whore? That’s a pity if he was, because it means she can’t be trusted.’
‘Don’t know … who …’
‘Oh, dear. You want me to give you the feeling that you have been brave, do you?’ he said, and suddenly his fist lashed out and caught my chin.
Have you ever seen an owl trained by a hawker, watching its master walk around it? It felt as if my head was going to snap round as far as the owl’s, and I heard something crackle. It must have been the gristle of my neck, I suppose. A pain lanced up from my shoulder to my skull, and I fell forward, eyes wide with the pain.
There really is nothing like being attacked to make rational thought disappear. I was finding it hard to breathe, my flank was on fire, and now my head was all but immovable. If I could have told him the whereabouts of my mother, I would have sold her gladly – if I knew where she was. But as things were, I could not speak.
‘No, there you are. You have been most bold. Where are they?’
His voice was measured, but there was a sharpness to it that I did not like. It was like the little edge in the voice of the village’s bully when he realizes he has been made the target of a witticism that he doesn’t understand. An edge that said, I don’t know what you’re saying, but I’m going to enjoy giving you every element of agony known to man.
He leaned down to my face, studying my features with a whimsical little smile. He looked like a father trying to teach a wayward son. ‘When I have finished with you, you will beg me to kill you and end your pain. I will take off your skin, and remove your fingers, joint by joint. I will castrate you slowly, and then remove all the flesh from your pizzle. And then I will take my little knife to your face. And I will—’
There was a scratching and scrabbling, and he turned from me to stare at the corridor to the kitchen. ‘Aha! Is that where they are? Little Ben?’ he called, and stood. For my part, all I could do was retch and vomit a little bile on the floor beside my head as I watched him walk lightly down the passage. He entered the kitchen, and suddenly I heard the most magnificent sound: a dull thud and ringing noise, as of a large griddle being dropped on a man’s head. Except it wasn’t.
It was Raphe wielding my griddle straight into Anthony’s face.
If there is a more satisfying sensation than being punched, kicked and threatened with … with all manner of unpleasant torments, and then seeing the repulsive fellow who threatened so much laid low with a solid iron griddle to the nose, I don’t know what it could be. Somehow I felt more alive and cheerful than I have for a long time when that foul man Seymour made Raphe’s bell ring using his face as the clapper. I watched as he stood stock still, and then suddenly crashed backwards to the ground. There was an interesting crack as his head hit the floor, which led me to hope that he would have a headache from front and back when he came to. Not that I was worried. Just at that moment, I was more intrigued as to how Raphe had entered the house so silently.
‘I saw him come in when me an’ Hector were at the baker’s. I didn’t think he was up to any good when he planted his fist in your gut, so I left Hector there, and came in by the back door.’
‘Raphe,’ I said, and I don’t mind admitting that my voice shook somewhat, ‘you are a servant in a hundred.’
‘Only a hundred?’
‘Don’t go to extremes,’ I warned. I eyed him, still rubbing my flank where Seymour’s boot had been planted. ‘But I will. You will have four shillings for your work today. This is the man who gave you the three shillings, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Raphe said, giving the body a grim look.
‘And I believe that he was the man responsible for making the black powder fail,’ I said. I cast my mind back to the sight at Smithfield. The men standing at their posts, the faggots set all about them, the smell of oils soaking the wood. To place such fellows there, to hang a bag of powder about their necks as though to save them the lingering death and offer them some sort of mercy, and then to soak the powder in water to make it ineffective, that struck me as a truly foul way to kill a man. Give him hope and then snatch it away.
‘Tie him up,’ I said, pointing to Anthony Seymour. ‘He deserves all he will get.’
It was to be a while before I could speak to Anthony. He was trussed like a joint for the fire, and set out in my parlour, hands and ankles bound, a cord running from his hands to the pillar, and I took a jug of wine and sipped from a goblet while I waited for him to stir. However, it took too long, so in the end I had Raphe fetch a bucket of water from the well and tip it over the man’s head.
He coughed and spluttered, trying to clamber to his feet before realizing that he was fixed in position where he was. A puzzled expression spread over his face, and he lifted his hands and stared at his bonds, before feeling his nose gingerly. Then his hands went to the back of his head, which involved turning his neck. In so doing, he saw me watching him. I lifted my goblet airily and took a long swig.
‘How is the head?’ I asked suavely.
He winced as he felt the lump at the back of his skull. ‘What hit me?’
‘A large cooking plate of iron.’
‘I see.’ He took his hands away and shifted his legs. ‘And, um, my …’
‘My servant did not like to see what you had done to me. Nor, I suspect, that you had deceived him in the tavern. You remember: when you told him about the powder and the visit of Westmecott.’
‘Ah, that,’ he said, and wriggled a little. I could empathize with his pain. Over the years, I too have been struck forcibly in the ballocks, and it is never a pleasant sensation. Not that I sympathized. That would be a step too far, while my belly was still aching and my jaw and neck and ribs giving me gyp. Besides, it would be hypocritical, since I too had kicked him while his legs were apart.
‘You were here trying to find out about Ben. Where he was and so on, I believe?’
‘You know,’ he said.
‘Perhaps you should assume I don’t?’
‘You are the assassin. You are told everything. Have you already killed him?’
‘Who?’
He practically snarled. If he had been a bear, I would have shot him from natural terror. Although he was bound well, I nearly sprang away. It never hurts to be safe, and better by far than suffering injury. ‘You know perfectly well. If you hurt that boy, you evil—’
I will draw a veil over the worst of his language. Although I am not prudish, it adds nothing to my tale, and shows him in a very poor light.
Instead, I waved my goblet airily. ‘I have no idea what you mean.’
‘There are many who would seek to have the mother and child slain just to save embarrassment.’
I nodded as though knowledgeably,
although I had little idea what he was talking about. ‘Embarrassment, yes.’
‘When my brother learns what you have done, he will be here in a trice. If you think I was harsh, you should wait until his appearance.’
‘I may just have the local watch called and have them deal with you.’
‘Oh, yes. The Queen’s men. I can see you calling them to attend to me!’ he sneered.
I wasn’t sure why my words should have caused him such amusement. I poured myself more wine. ‘Perhaps I should simply dispose of you myself, then.’ I reached over to the table, on which my jug and goblet stood. However, just out of his vision there was one other item, a knife which I had been using to cut cheese. I picked it up and studied the blade.
‘What are you doing?’ he snapped suddenly.
‘I was remembering what you said you would do to me,’ I said. ‘I think it was skin me alive, sever every finger, joint by joint, castrate me …’
‘I was making an amusing pleasantry,’ he said.
‘It feels like it,’ I said. I felt something at my throat, and when I touched a finger to it, I realized it was blood. He had pulled the scab from my jaw. I stared at my finger, trying to keep the horror from my face.
I must have looked terrifying. When I experience a wound and see my own blood flowing, I become quickly nauseous, and today I felt a hot flush run into my cheeks. If you have seen a picture of a truly choleric man suffering from a fierce rage, you might get a similar image to that of my face. Clearly, Anthony felt sure that I was about to kill him. ‘I thought you knew where Peggy and the boy had gone,’ he said quickly.
‘Where have you put Moll?’ I said.
‘She is at our house in Whitehall. She is perfectly safe there. We don’t need to hurt her.’
‘And what will you do with the boy if you find him?’
‘I will take him to meet his relatives,’ he said, and there was a curl to his lip as he spoke.
He was not a man I liked.
‘Let us see if I can persuade you to be more helpful,’ I said.
I glanced at his body, the lithe form beneath the jack and hosen. With the very tip of the knife, I cut away at the first laces holding his jack to his hosen. I allowed the point of the knife to slip down between his clothing. ‘Oh, silly me,’ I murmured.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, more loudly. ‘You can’t kill me! I’m the son of a nobleman, you base-born son of a whore!’
‘What did you call me?’
I pressed slightly, and felt the knife’s tip meet an obstruction. It was his flesh, and he must have realized that my knife must be close to the big, fat artery that runs between the groin and the inner thigh. I knew of it because I had seen an artilleryman struck by a two-foot-long splinter of wood during the rebellion, and the sudden effusion of blood was enough to make me wish for better protection for that part of my body, especially when the poor fellow collapsed soon after and was dead before we could think of a tourniquet. Not that it would have helped, I am told.
‘I can kill you this easily,’ I said. The knife, I knew, was blunt. I had tried to cut a slice of ham only last week, and it had performed almost as well as a twig. I pressed down. ‘So, be polite.’
‘Yes, yes. Very well!’
Now, when a fellow makes a mistake, usually there is a period of grace during which he can rectify matters. Believe me when I say that the knife was blunt. I knew it was blunt. I had tried to slice meat, and the blade would not oblige. It was, most certainly, blunt.
And yet now, as I pressed lightly, the minor resistance became no resistance. There was an incoherent cry, which must have come from him, because all I remember was staring at his thigh and wondering what had happened. I can clearly recall that the thought went through my mind that I must have missed his leg entirely, and that I had somehow snagged a fold of his shirt, that the blade had torn through it, and was even now resting in the gap between his legs. A foolish error, I thought. I was about to pull the blade free and have another go, when events conspired to overwhelm me.
He gave a howl, and I chuckled at his agonized face, thinking my knife’s point had scratched his pizzle or one of his ballocks. There was certainly reason to believe that he had been injured. His face was drawn and yellowish, as though he had been castrated without the benefit of brandy, and I would not have been sad to think it was so. He had made some very appalling threats to me, you will remember.
His howl became a terrible cry of loss and horror, and I still smiled at him, although with a sense of growing confusion. He was acting, obviously, thinking to tempt me into releasing him, I thought. But as he continued, I began to wonder: I had not expected such a display of madness. Perhaps, I wondered, I had managed to give him a little scratch? But he would not make such a commotion for a small injury.
It was then that I grew aware of something else. His legs had begun to drum on the floor, and with every movement, the knife in my hand was jerked. And that struck me as odd, because, naturally, if the knife had slipped between his thighs, there would be nothing but empty space. If that was the case, I reasoned, there should be no movement in the blade. Just now, it was almost as though the knife was caught in some way.
At that point I glanced down, and whipped my hand away from the knife. ‘Oh no! Oh, God, no! God’s wounds!’
‘You have killed me!’ he hissed feebly.
A thick, red stain was spreading from his thigh, and even as his contortions reduced, and his legs moved less energetically, and the spasmodic jig was become a country dance, I could see that the man was dying before me.
‘Come closer!’ he whispered, and I leaned down, thinking he wanted me to listen to his confession, but even as my ear approached his mouth, he gave a grunt and said, ‘My brother will cut off your pizzle and use it for a—’
Mercifully, he never completed the sentence. There was a ghastly rattling sound, and a sigh, and he was dead.
There have been a few occasions in my life when I have been truly shocked. Once was when that massive splinter of wood struck my companion at London Bridge. It was less his death and more the fact that it nearly hit me. It was huge, at least a yard long, and flew so close to me that I felt its passage. I swear it shaved some hair from my head as it passed. However, I think that this situation, in which I had slain a fellow by dint of simple accident, must rank as one of the most appalling I have experienced.
I was still at the side of the body when the door opened.
Now, I have to say that in the past Raphe has occasionally shown me great respect, which I believe is proof that he is more aware of my official position than I would expect from a usual servant. I think I mentioned that I believe Raphe to be related to my master, John Blount? It is clear enough to me that Raphe often has been disrespectful, and then – occasionally – has appeared to regret his outbursts as if realizing that they could possibly be construed as insulting to me. And if he was aware that I was a dangerous assassin, such would be a serious consideration. He might believe that I would murder him for some real or imagined slight.
In recent months, he had grown more and more comfortable – or perhaps I should say complacent. But any complacency in his face was driven away by the sight of a highly visible corpse, whose gore was all about him and me on the floor, and in which I was kneeling.
I was still shocked by the horror of what I had done, but I snapped my mouth shut and stared at him. He barely seemed to notice me. His attention was entirely taken up by the body.
‘Raphe … Raphe? RAPHE!’
Startled by my shout, he looked up, his eyes full of a reasonable fear. ‘Yes?’
‘I should like to go out for a little. Roll this man into a blanket, and tie it securely, and then clean up the mess. I will be back before noon, I think.’
‘Y–yes, sir,’ he stammered, and I strode out like a man who had not a care in the world.
I had never needed the privy so badly.
I was in the privy for some little while. E
ven after drinking a gallon and a half of strong ale at a private party, when a friend had suggested a barrel of oysters afterwards, I don’t think I had been as sick as I was that day. I had to stand at the side of the hole and heave until I could heave no more, and then sit for a while with my back to the privy’s seat. The stench in there was disgusting in the warm weather, but the smell didn’t bother me as much as the memory of the body, and the little slithering feeling of the blade sinking into his … no, I can’t think about it even now.
When I could bring up no more, I had to go to the well and rinse my mouth. It tasted acrid and sour, as if some demon of the night had entered my mouth and defecated. I had to swill my mouth, spitting water at the pathway six times before it became tolerable, and then, when I looked down, I saw that my knees were as red as a pair of ripe plums. I had to soak both knees in water, rubbing at the fabric to remove the last of Anthony Seymour’s blood. It was no easy task, and the cold water seemed to seep into my legs, but I had too much to do to worry about that just now. I left the well and made my way to St Paul’s, and down the other side to the alleyway where Westmecott lived. He was an easy man to find. There was no answer when I beat against his door, but when I returned to the tavern we had visited before, I soon saw the hulking figure.
‘Westmecott,’ I said, but he hissed at me.
‘Not so loud! In ’ere men know me as Saul Kerridge. I’m nothing to do with the man who executes the city’s felons.’
I was tempted to point out that others in the area where he lived must know his name, but it seemed pointless. No doubt the man was half soused and couldn’t think straight. ‘I need your aid.’
‘That sounds like somethin’ that’ll cost you a pretty shilling.’
‘I will pay what is necessary. The simple fact is a man entered my house today and beat me. I managed to fight him off, and he died. Now I must dispose of the body.’
‘A man broke into your ’ouse? Tell the watch, call a coroner, and ’ave his death recorded.’
‘No, you don’t understand. I cannot have an investigation in my house,’ I said. ‘It would be troublesome for me. Come, you said you could always lose a body. Here’s a fresh one for you.’
Death Comes Hot Page 13
