‘Old fool?’ I repeated with some asperity.
‘No, Henry! I won’t do it again, Henry,’ she protested, and as he pointed his gun’s barrel at her, something clicked in my head.
You see, before I became a professional assassin – or, at least, a professional contractor of assassinations – I had a moderately successful career as a pickpocket. In those happy days, I lived with other disreputable characters in a number of properties of greater or lesser elegance, and I had come to know experts of lock-picking and gambling, and cheats of all stripes and colours. There were many women who would sell their bodies, and some who would pretend to, before practising their best purse-diving and bolting.
‘Why should he live? He’s taken advantage of my wife!’
‘Oh, Henry, please, don’t do anything rash!’
‘I’ll make him pay!’
‘Oh, Henry, think of the children!’
And although many of those same women would have convinced on the stage, this one – well, she was a poor actress.
I pushed Cat gently from me and bent to pull on my hosen, setting my codpiece in place. ‘I am sorry, but if I want to watch play-acting, I will go to a good inn and watch it there with a quart of ale in my hand.’
‘You think I’m play-acting?’ the man said, the barrel turning to me once more.
‘No, I don’t think it; I know it. In the first place, your wife was too quick, too keen to take advantage of me. And while I know I am better-looking than most, I feel sure that her eyes were more fixed on my purse than my cods,’ I said, ‘and in the second, your story is not convincing.’
‘What?’ the man said. His tone was threatening, and the barrel was a hideous sight. I peered at it and then pressed on.
‘If you wish to continue with this line of work, I really must recommend that you have your woman instructed in how better to show alarm. Her feigned concern really will not do,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’ she said, a scowl darkening her pretty features. She pulled away from me, kneeling at my side, long dark hair all awry and not covering her modesty. She was wearing a shift against the chill of the evening, but it was ancient and thin, and I could see the entrancing figure beneath. I tried not to be distracted by it.
‘Cat, if you wish to entrap a man, you need to show genuine fear for your own safety, not for his. After all, a jealous husband would be likely to slaughter you both when he found the two of you in his bed, would he not? And for all that your partner here is a strong, bold-looking companion, I can see and hear little of the true rage in his voice that a man would exhibit on finding his wife enwrapped about her swain. My apologies, but a husband in such a moment would be less likely to speak to her and threaten the ravisher, and more likely to slaughter them both. And he would not do it with a firearm, but with a club, knife or anything else that might come to hand speedily and with ease. A man in the throes of jealous, righteous rage doesn’t pause to discuss the adulterer’s offences, but simply leaps in and punishes both his wife and her love-lad.’
‘Damn your eyes!’ the man said, and the gun barrel was thrust towards me.
You can believe me or not, but I merely smiled at him.
‘Leave it, Henry,’ Cat said. She had her head tilted as she surveyed me. ‘What should we do, then?’
‘You did quite well,’ I said. I was pulling my shirt over my head now. ‘Your man’s apparent rage was well feigned, but slow, and your snaring of your gull was most efficient, but you needs must think of your reaction when your man appears.’
‘It worked well enough so far!’ she said, and she sounded hurt. ‘I got you here, didn’t I?’
‘Your attractions did,’ I said, glancing at the body semi-concealed by her shift. She pulled the edges about her and glared at me. I continued, ‘Perhaps you need to think of a new patter. It sounds contrived, Cat. As though you have learned the words, but not the emotion. You need to think up a different line, something that will sound fresh and new.’
Henry was scowling now, but he had the appearance of an offended man rather than an angry one. ‘You mean we’ve wasted all this time and you …’
‘I am not fearful, no.’
‘We could still rob you.’
I stared at him, and for the first time I realized he was a little older than me. Cat was herself about two and twenty, I guessed, the same as me, but he looked to be three years our senior. There was another difference between the two: she was delightful.
Her hair was as black as a raven’s wing, and now that it was released, it curled about her shoulders like an inky waterfall. It framed an oval face with cheekbones that would have looked good on a Spanish princess. I may, like all natural Englishmen, dislike the Spanish for their arrogance and greed, but no man could deny that their women have great beauty. Cat’s own face was so pale that it had an almost transparent quality. Usually, I prefer women who have more colour to them – blondes with skin that has been lightly bronzed, or auburn-haired harpies with freckles and cheeks the colour of damask – but I confess Cat was the sort of woman who could entrance with a glance. Her mouth and eyes were, if not already doing so, always on the verge of smiling. Hers was the sort of face next to which a man could wake up every day for the rest of his life and feel honoured.
Which is why I found it hard to understand what she was doing with the gorilla.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You can’t just rob me.’ I pulled on my jacket, feeling the comforting weight again.
Henry was a dolt. A clod of the first water. He may have been a quarter of a century in age, but he had the look of an apprentice who had found his vocation by tripping over it, more than by dint of any effort. His dark eyes were suspicious as he stood glaring, his gaze moving from Cat to me and back, with an air of offended pride, like a child who has been thrashed for another’s offence, and his mouth moved like a landed fish gasping on the deck. ‘What, you think you can protect yourself against this?’ he demanded, and thrust the gun at me.
I put my left forefinger on to the very end of the barrel and pushed it aside. He glared at me. When he tried to grab my hand and move it away, I pulled out my own handgun and pushed the barrel into his cheek.
‘What are you doing?’ he said.
‘I am showing you what a real pistol looks like. Because yours is a pale imitation, Henry. It isn’t real, and it won’t fire. Whereas this thing most certainly will. In other words, step back and don’t act like a lunatic, you great lummox.’
‘Let it go, Henry,’ the woman sighed. ‘He’s beaten us.’
Henry groaned, and the gun in his hand fell to his side. ‘What do you mean, it’s not real?’ he said in hurt tones. ‘I paid good money for that.’
‘They saw you coming, then,’ I said. I pulled the dog from the wheel to make my gun safe and thrust it into my belt. ‘You have a nice idea for a scam; I’ll give you both that. All you need to do is make it a little more believable. More panic on your part, Cat, and, Henry, you need to make it sound like you really believe that she’s done something. You didn’t convince me, and you won’t convince others.’
‘It’d work with others,’ Henry said grumpily.
‘Not, I’ll wager, in London. Folk are more suspicious here. And now I will be off.’
I stood. Cat was eyeing me suspiciously, head set slightly to one side. I admit, I preferred to see her with the half-smile on her face.
‘How do you know so much?’ she said.
‘I have lived in London most of my life,’ I lied. I had only been living here for the last few years. I had been born in Whitstable, and when my mother died, I became lackey and slave to my father, who was more interested in the contents of a cup of ale than me. It was good to come here and be free of him.
‘You could teach us a lot.’
‘If I wished, no doubt. But I have better things to be doing, I am afraid, Cat. You must shift for yourselves.’
She lithely climbed from the bed and made her way to me, the thin linen of her
tunic falling open to show the swelling of her breast. ‘I could make you feel it was worthwhile, if you helped us.’
‘What? Oh, no. You’re not going to lie with him just so he can tell you a load of …’
‘Henry, be still,’ she said. She was standing before me now, her back to Henry, and her eyes delicately dropped to my cods before she looked up again, and now she raised an eyebrow. The offer was clear enough.
‘Just to tell you a little about the city?’
‘Yes. Just to help us a little.’
I considered. There was no doubt that she was a pretty little piece, and there would be some satisfaction in having my way with her against the will of her own husband. Not that Henry would be difficult as an amorous antagonist; I would surely be able to entice her away from him with my charms and money. Perhaps holding a few little engagements with her, I might be able to get further than I had this evening. If the benighted Henry had only given me another few minutes … but there was no point weeping over lost opportunities. Far better to make an assignation for later.
Thus it was that I arranged to see her the following day, at the Cheshire Cheese again, where I hoped to be able to arrange for a quiet, snug little chamber where we might discuss a number of topics and I might give her a practical demonstration of my own qualities.
I was not to know that I would not be able to honour the arrangement.
Leaving the house, I stood a moment or two in the street, reflecting. It was tempting to propose that we might immediately move to discussing their predicament and other possibilities, ideally while sending Henry out on a wild goose chase, but I felt it would be safer to leave the two together, in order that she might persuade him of the merits of learning from me.
I strolled eastwards, along Pope’s Lane, past St Agnes, then down past St Vedast to Westcheap, and thence turned towards my own house, which lay just off Alegatestrete. It was a pleasant abode, with a goodly sized hall, parlour, buttery and pantry, a small room upstairs next to my bedchamber, in which I kept my money box, and a kitchen that a cook might make good use of. However, I had no cook. Instead, I relied on the less-than-incompetent servant who stood as butler and cook: Raphe, the whining scoundrel whose sole strengths lay in his ability to throw wine over my best hosen and disappear whenever there was work to be done. I would have to dispose of him somehow. As things stood, his only other skill being an apparently rapacious appetite for my meat and wine, he was costing me too much to justify his lack of effort on my behalf. However, casting him from my door might prove difficult, bearing in mind he was related to my own master. Throwing him out might have complications.
It was while I was considering this that I heard a loud ‘Hoi!’ from behind me.
This was just as the light had fled the city, and I was startled by the call. After all, a man is always in danger in London, and never more so than at night. I reached under my jacket for my handgun, catching the dog in my shirt as I pulled it free, and I was attempting to extricate myself when the man appeared from the shadows, two others at his side.
‘Master Blackjack, I want a word with you.’
‘I am otherwise engaged,’ I said, with a slight bow to indicate that I was a man of quality, not a mere ‘Hey, you!’ to be stopped in the street.
‘You are now,’ the man said, and that was when I noticed his staff of office. ‘You are wanted for murder, my bully boy!’
‘Murder?’
Now, I have had my fair share of arrests over the years, and generally I have not enjoyed them. Today, after my frustration with Cat, the damage done to my breeches and my gambling losses, I was not in the mood for another. In the past, of course, I would merely have submitted, were there no escape in sight. I was young enough in those days to leap up like a deer and spring into the middle distance before the average tipstaff realized I was gone. I imagine a few of them saw little more than a shimmer in the air, which faded like dissipating mist before their eyes, while I set off at speed.
But that was before I became a man of quality. Now I had a house, good clothes and regular meals. I was not content to be berated by an officer in the street, and I made that clear to him.
‘Then you’d best let us inside, hey?’
This was from somewhere near my left ear and was so loud that I felt sure my ear would never stop ringing. I sprang round, clapping a hand over it, and found myself looking up into a beaming, bearded face.
‘Who are you?’ I asked weakly.
‘Me? I’m Sir Richard of Bath, sir,’ said the fellow, and I felt myself rocked back on my feet by the blast. His voice was so loud, it was like hearing the crack of doom pronouncing, and it was unpleasant to be only inches from it. When he spoke, birds stopped tweeting, and dogs stopped barking to slouch away, whimpering.
You see, it wasn’t just how loud he was; it was the mere fact of his presence. It was like standing before a gale and listening to a message on the wind. He was huge. I swear his chest and belly together were like a barrel, and I had the distinct impression that were I to attempt to punch his stomach, it would hurt as much as striking an oaken stave with my fist.
For all that, he did not look a dangerous man. He had kindly blue eyes that twinkled, more wrinkles than a mastiff, and his beard looked as if it had never come in contact with a comb. It was gingerish, shot through with threads of silver, and hung halfway down his breast in a thoroughly unfashionable manner. He was plainly some yokel knight who had come to the city to see the sights. Still, he was deafening.
‘Who?’ I said dully.
‘The Coroner for this ward. Come, man, let us in and we can tell you what the matter is, without disturbing yer neighbours, hey?’
I felt bewildered, but did as he asked, and when I stood aside to let him pass, he gave a cheery chuckle and waved me in before him, as though I might have bolted, had I the chance. It was damned disrespectful and proved that he was not as dim as most rural knights. I was about to make a pointed comment when I heard a strange sound from inside. It was a dog barking. I don’t have a dog.
‘Raphe!’ I shouted as I entered. ‘Bring wine! And what is that noise?’
The boy would usually be sitting in the kitchen with a flagon of my best sitting beside him, if I knew my servant at all, and I knew him all too well now. But what he was doing with a four-legged flea-farm, I had no idea.
His head appeared around the doorway. ‘What?’
‘What are you doing with a brute? Are you turned dog-muffler?’
But he made no comment as to whether he sought to flay the animal to sell the skin. He took one look at Sir Richard and hurried out of sight.
‘Well?’ I demanded as I walked into my hall and took my place before the fire, warming my backside. ‘What the devil is this about?’
The man who called himself the Coroner, still smiling broadly, walked to my favourite chair and plumped down into it with a sigh such as Bacchus might have given after a gallon of the best. ‘Ah, that’s good, master. You are, I believe, Master Jack Blackjack?’
‘Yes, servant to John Blount and, through him, Sir Thomas Parry. What of it?’
‘Ah, you see, there has been a murder, master. Very sad, very sad. And there’ve been accusations laid at your door.’
‘Mine?’ I said. ‘Who dares accuse me?’ In the last months I had been hired as assassin to Master John Blount, a professional position to which I was less than enthusiastic to be wedded, but which had compensations, such as this house, my clothes, my wine and food. It paid very well, as my little strongbox upstairs could attest. In recent weeks I had been commissioned to remove certain two-legged impediments to the plans of Master Parry and Master Blount, and although I had not completed the commissions myself – instead, I had taken the opportunity to subcontract them – still, the knight’s announcement shook me. It made me feel weak, and I slumped on to a seat and made a show of clearing my throat. One of my supposed killings had come back to haunt me, clearly. ‘Murder?’ I tried again. ‘Who could you mean? Wh
o has died?’
‘The sad truth is he was a priest. Leaves a wife and five children.’
‘That is sad …’ I said no more, but he and I both knew the fact of it. The Queen, God bless her, had decided early on in her reign that the priests who had been forced to give up their Catholic faith under Good King Henry, God bless his memory, and then Edward, his son, had all been told to give up their new faith and return to the fold, as it were. Those who had taken advantage of the new religion to marry the women with whom they had already been sharing their beds, begging forgiveness from God each Sunday, were now told to set the women aside and leave them. The alternative was to keep the women but lose their benefices. And unlike when King Henry had dragged the monks and abbots from their homes so that they could be torn down or sold on, giving them generous pensions in many cases, the Queen had resolved that those who refused her kind offer were to be ejected from their livings. They could keep wife and children or their incomes. Not both. ‘What has this dead priest to do with me?’
‘His servant said that ye were responsible.’
I gaped. ‘Who? Who is this servant? Who is the man who’s died?’
‘As to that, who d’you think?’
I racked my brains, but I was no closer to a solution. ‘I have no idea. I don’t know many priests, and none with five children.’
‘Hah! That’s what they all say. Mind you, the fella shouldn’t have had a wife and children if he’s still a priest. So either he was a bad priest or he was calling himself “priest” when he wasn’t, if ye follow me meaning.’
‘It isn’t difficult,’ I said. ‘Who said I was responsible?’
‘His servant, a Master Atwood.’
‘Atwood?’ I yelped, and sprang to my feet.
‘What of it?’
I could, of course, have said, ‘He’s the murderous pickthank, a mischief-maker, who tried to murder me,’ or ‘He’s the unscrupulous bastard who turned his coat three or more times during the Wyatt Rebellion,’ or ‘He’s a man who would open your belly to see what you ate last night,’ or any one of the many of the other things that immediately jumped into my mind. Instead, I said calmly, ‘He is a fellow who used to work for me here. I was forced to part with his services after I saw the sort of man he was. I kept him as butler, but the damned fellow sold off much of my wine, ate my best meats, and then tried to rape a serving wench from the house next door.’ I have always found that, when attempting to give false witness, it is better, if possible, to embellish and leave the listener in no doubt as to your feelings in the matter. ‘He was not the sort of man whose word I could trust.’
The Dead Don't Wai Page 2
